I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration.

O Music! how it grieves me that imprudence, intemperance, gluttony, should open their channels into thy sacred stream.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

Fancy is imagination in her youth and adolescence. Fancy is always excursive; imagination, not seldom, is sedate.

Children are what the mothers are.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.