When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

Convinced that the republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind, my prayers & efforts shall be cordially distributed to the support of that we have so happily established. It is indeed an animating thought that, while we are securing the rights of ourselves & our posterity, we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also. Heaven help their struggles, and lead them, as it has done us, triumphantly thro' them.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.