In a government bottomed on the will of all, the... liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all.

[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.

The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? — Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens . . . There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.