The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.

When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it.

To be really useful, we must keep pace with the state of society, and not dishearten it by attempts at what its population, means, or occupations will fail in attempting.

I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth.

By making this wine known to the public, I have rendered my country as great a service as if I had enabled it to pay back the national debt.