Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism.

Paper money is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.

Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will; collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.

It is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow their end.

So much of the presidency is a matter of standing in the path of a Newsham Engine for Quenching Fires, opening one's mouth, and attempting to get a drink.

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate.