I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.

It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.

The soil is the gift of God to the living.

The sun - my almighty physician.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man.