Agriculture is at the same time the most tranquil, healthy, and independent occupation.

What but education has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors? And what chains them to their present state of barbarism and wretchedness but a bigoted veneration for the supposed superlative wisdom of their fathers and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization?

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.

A good neighbor is a very desireable thing.

We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self - government.

Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility.

Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.