“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

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

“A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities.”

“Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”

“I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.”

“I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.”

“I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.”

“How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” 

“The only security of all is in a free press.”

“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

“...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”