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

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...entangling alliances with none”

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”

“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”

“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.” 

“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.”

“If all be true that I do think, there are five reasons we should drink. Good friends, good times, or being dry, or lest we should be by and by, or any other reason why”