“Yet by such worthless beings is a great nation to be governed and even made to deify their old king because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his having lost to them a great and flourishing empire.”

“Paper is poverty, it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”

“Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.”

“Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states, in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep.”

“The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.”

“Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.”

“Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions.”

“I'd rather argue against a hundred idiots, than have one agree with me.”