I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves.

Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people; they fix too for the people the principles of their political creed.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.

Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.