I leave the world and its affairs to the young and energetic, and resign myself to their care, of whom I have endeavored to take care when young.

My general plan would be to make the States one as to everything connected with foreign nations and several as to everything purely domestic.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Paper money is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.

I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.