We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

My reason for fixing them in office for a term of years, rather than for life, was that they might have an idea that they were at a certain period to return into the mass of the people and become the governed instead of the governors which might still keep alive that regard to the public good that otherwise they might perhaps be induced by their independence to forget.

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.

The cement of this union is in the heart blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis.

How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.