Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

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.

It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it.

[A] spirit of justice and friendly accomodation...is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations.

If our legislature does not heartily push our University [of Virginia] we must send our children for education to Kentucky [Transylvania College] or Cambridge [Harvard College]. The latter will return them to us as fanatics and tories, the former will keep them to add to their population.

I would observe to you that what is called style in writing or speaking is formed very early in life while the imagination is warm, and impressions are permanent.

The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.