If science produces no better fruits than tyranny... I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighbouring savages are.

The Gothic idea that we were to look backwards instead of forwards for the improvement of the human mind, and to recur to the annals of our ancestors for what is most perfect in government, in religion and in learning, is worthy of those bigots in religion and government by whom it has been recommended, and whose purposes it would answer. But it is not an idea which this country will endure.

We must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.

I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self- government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.

We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by reflection.

I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.

No society can make a perpetual constitution... The earth belongs always to the living generation.