The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.

An hereditary aristocracy... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.

In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

How sublime to look down on the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet!