The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.

Where thought is free in its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself.

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

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

On the subject of the history of the American Revolution, you ask who shall write it? Who can write it? And who will ever be able to write it? Nobody, except merely its external facts... all its councils, designs and discussions having been conducted by Congress [behind] closed doors - and no members, as far as I know, having even made notes of them. These, which are the life and soul of history, must forever be unknown.

There is preparing, I hope, under the auspices of heaven, a way for a total emancipation.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.