The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.

Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.

No one has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature.

The moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing.

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.

The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

The fact is that one new idea leads to another, that to a third and so on through a course of time, until someone, with whom no one of these ideas was original, combines all together, and produces what is justly called a new invention.