“The poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labor are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little or have friends from whom they derive some succor, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementary aids are given which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds without visible property or vocation, are placed in work houses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor”

“I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” 

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” 

“Was the government to prescribe us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now."

“If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”

“Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.”

“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his (sic)patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease”

“I am convinced our own happiness requires that we should continue to mix with the world, and to keep pace with it as it goes. "

“I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.”

“There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government”

“I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.”