“It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterward.”

“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”

“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.” 

“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.”

“They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.”

“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.” 

“If you want something you've never had You must be willing to do something you've never done.” 

“So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.”

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.”

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

“The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.”

“It is the duty of every American citizen to take part in a vigorous debate on the issues of the day.”

“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.”