When we consider how much climate contributes to the happiness of our condition, by the fine sensation it excites, and the productions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident of birth in such a one as that of Virginia.

There are other places at which ... the laws have said there shall be towns; but Nature has said there shall not, and they remain unworthy of enumeration.

The cutting of heads is become so much a la mode, that one is apt to feel of a morning whether their own is on their shoulders.

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified.

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.