The worst day in a man's life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.

[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.

The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it.

But whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their re- establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family.