No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence.
I believe the states can best govern our home concerns and the federal government our foreign ones.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
One man with courage is a majority.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.