I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.

The art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and information.

Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable for, not the rightness, but the uprightness of the decision

If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

What we learn to do, we learn by doing.

The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.