Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man.

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it; but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.

[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore . . . never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.

The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in.