Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

We prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form and to any people whatever.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

I am myself an empiric in natural philosophy, suffering my faith to go no further than my facts. I am pleased, however, to see the efforts of hypothetical speculation, because by the collisions of different hypotheses, truth may be elicited and science advanced in the end.

The best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of the first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful.