letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilisation.

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.

Honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality.

The value of science to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight.

Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences.

Political interest [can] never be separated in the long run from moral right.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.