Every generation needs a new revolution.

We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.

The fantastical idea of virtue and the public good being a sufficient security to the state against the commission of crimes, which you say you have heard insisted on by some, I assure you was never mine.

I was dupedby the Secretary of the treasury [Alexander Hamilton], and made a fool for forwarding his schemes, not then sufficiently understood by me; and of all the errors of my political life, this has occasioned the deepest regret.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.

The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.