Taste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.

The clergy believe that any power confided in me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes, and they believe rightly.

The foundation on which (our government is) built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office, and particularly the denial of a pre-eminence by birth.

Men as well as rivers grow crooked by following the path of least resistance.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

The variety of opinions leads to questions. Questions lead to truth.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.