I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.

You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

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

I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations.

While old men feel sensibly enough their own advance in years, they do not sufficiently recollect it in those whom they have seenyoung.