“The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.”

“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.”

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

“I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.” 

“If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.”

“The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.”

“All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.”

“Were I to undertake to answer the calumnies of the newspapers, it would be more than all my own time, and that of 20 aids could effect. For while I should be answering one, twenty new ones would be invented. I have thought it better to trust the justice of my country-men, that they would judge me by what they see of my conduct on the stage where they have placed me.”

“Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying.”

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

“[A] lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.”

“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.” 

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

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

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