My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.

Never put off your massage until tomorrow if you can get it today.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. . . . We might as well require a man to wear the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?