Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural.

Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe?

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

We often repent of what we have said, but never, never, of that which we have not.

It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.

Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.