If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it.

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

One had rather have no opinion than a false one.

I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things; but they would have been done by others; some of them, perhaps, a little better.

Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.

By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.

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