The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future.

Government arrogates to itself that it alone forms men. Everybody knows that government never began anything. It is the whole world that thinks and governs.

Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated.... There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.

Experience is a safe light to walk by, and he is not a rash man who expects to succeed in future from the same means which have secured it in times past.

The republic which sinks to sleep, trusting to constitutions and machinery, to politicians and statesmen, for the safety of its liberties, never will have any.

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

Neither do I acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America: it only crops out here.