I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.

The benefit of even limited monopolies is too doubtful, to be opposed to that of their general suppression.

Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.

A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry

If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves.