In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.

On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?

The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and in-grafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.

I do not agree that an age of pleasure is no compensation for a moment of pain.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.