Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.

No country and no people can be free and ignorant at the same time.

The happiest hours of my life have been spent in the flow of affection among friends.

No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness.

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree.