I am sensible that he who means to do mankind a real service must set down with the determination of putting up, and bearing with all their faults, follies, prejudices and mistakes until he can convince them that he is right.

The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax

The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly.

Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men can forgive sins and you will have sins in abundance.

The choicest gift of God to man, the gift of reason; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason; as if man could give reason to himself.

Rights are not gifts from one man to another, nor from one class of men to another. It is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man; it consequently follows that rights appertain to man in right of his existence, and must therefore be equal to every man.

Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.