“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”

“The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.”

“It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.”

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

“With your talents and industry, with science, and that steadfast honesty, which eternally pursues right, regardless of consequences, you may promise yourself everything but health, without which there is no happiness.”

“Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.”

“A habilidade mais valiosa é aquela de jamais usar duas palavras quando uma apenas basta.”

“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.” 

“[Christianity is] the most ... perverted system that ever shone on man.”

“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”

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

“If you want something you’ve never had, you’ve got to do something you’ve never done before.”

“It was one of the rules which above all others made Doctr. Franklin the most amiable of men in society, "never to contradict anybody.”

“A Man's management of his own purse speaks volumes about character”

“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”