Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

In our own native land, in defense of the freedom that is our birthright and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it. For the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.

People generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace.

Perfection in wisdom, as well as in integrity, is neither required nor expected in these agents (public servants). It belongs not to man. The wise know too well their weaknesses to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.

You have lived longer than I have and perhaps may have formed a different judgment on better grounds; but my observations do not enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth. In general I believe the decisions of the people, in a body, will be more honest and more disinterested than those of wealthy men.