[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives. For it is in our lives, and not from our works, that our religion must be read.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

An industrious farmer occupies a more dignified place in the scale of beings...than a lazy lounger...too proud to work, and drawing out a miserable existence by eating on that surplus of other men's labor.

New York, like London, seems to be a cloacina [toilet] of all the depravities of human nature.

But of all the views of this law [universal education] none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.