Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.

To seek out the best [persons to serve in the government] though the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with ther purest motives, is something incorrect....No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.

Religions are all the same...Based upon legends and fantasies

I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.

I do not know whether you are fond of chemical reading. There are some things in this science worth reading.

The concentrating of powers in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.