The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.

I'd rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

When we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of society. I believe that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force.

I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude

The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.