"It astonishes me to find... [that so many] of our countrymen... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty... which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries."

I leave the world and its affairs to the young and energetic, and resign myself to their care, of whom I have endeavored to take care when young.

While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.

Paper is poverty, it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.

[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.

The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

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