All the capital employed in paper speculation is barren and useless, producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself, and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture where it would have produced addition to the common mass It nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness instead of industry and morality It has furnished effectual means of corrupting such a portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters whichever way it is directed.

The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.

I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared

Religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary for good government... Therefore schools and the means of educating the people should always be encouraged.

Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.

Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep.

I long to be in the midst of the children, and have more pleasure in their little follies than in the wisdom of the wise.