The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.

“The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

“Philosophy is common sense with big words.”

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both”

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

“[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance.”

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

“You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.”

“Equal laws protecting equal rights…the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.”

“Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.”

“Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions. ”

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree”

“Democracy is the most vile form of government.”

“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home”

“The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security.”

“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

“Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.”

“Let me recommend the best medicine in the world a long journey at a mild season through a pleasant country in easy stages.”

“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire...”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.”

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.”

“A good Government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of Government, which is the happiness of the People; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.”

“In framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty is this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

“Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.”

“Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”

“If we are to be one Nation in any respect, it clearly ought to be in respect to other Nations.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.”

“Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.”

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect.”

“If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

“I entirely concur in the propriety of restoring to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is a legitimate constitution. And, if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for consistent and stable government.”

“[The Senate] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”

“Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament, to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.”

“...[at the Constitutional Convention] the States were divided into different interests not by their difference of size, but principally from their having or not having slaves. It did not lie between the large and small States: it lay between the Northern and Southern.”

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security —”