Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.

Should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.

I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless.

Knowledge is power...knowled ge is safety...knowle dge is happiness.

The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam [to a carriage on wheels] will make a great change in the situation of man.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

Difficulties indeed sometimes arise; but common sense and honest intentions will generally steer through them.