No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

The art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and information.

The private buildings [of Virginia] are very rarely constructed of stone or brick; much the greatest proportion being of scantlingand boards, plastered with lime. It is impossible to devise things more ugly, uncomfortable, and happily more perishable.

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.

But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?

Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.

I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.