- The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences;
the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. - I read my eyes out and can't read half enough...the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.
- Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
- Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
- A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
- The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know...Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.