“I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.”

“I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

“When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.” 

“Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred”

“That one generation of men in civil society have no right to make acts to bind another, is a truth that cannot be confused.”

“Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.”

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”

“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.”

“This is the fourth?

“Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.”

“Never spend your money before you have earned it.”

“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”

“Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.” 

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” 

“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.”