I see now our fireside formed into a groupe, no one member of which has a fibre in their composition which can ever produce any jarring or jealousies among us. No irregular passions, no dangerous bias, which may render problematical the future fortunes and happiness of our descendants.

Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.

In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.

Our ancestors ... were laborers, not lawyers.

A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution [the University of Virginia]

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.