There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

History teaches the young the virtues of freedom. By apprising them of the past it will enable them to judge the future.

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the same piece of wood? He has a right to use his knife to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to combine their use on the same subject? Such a law, instead of enlarging our conveniences, as was intended, would most fearfully abridge them, and crowd us by monopolies out of the use of the things we have.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

I long to be in the midst of the children, and have more pleasure in their little follies than in the wisdom of the wise.

One single object . . . [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.