Indeed, we need not look back half a century to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences and arts which have been made within that period. Some of these have rendered the elements themselves subservient to the purposes of man, have harnessed them to the yoke of his labors and effected the great blessings of moderating his own, of accomplishing what was beyond his feeble force, and extending the comforts of life to a much enlarged circle, to those who had before known its necessaries only.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix the principles and practices of virtue.

To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.

It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.

Our wish is that...[there be] maintained that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

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