Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. Read Summary
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. Read Summary
And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. Read Summary
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Read Summary
The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived. Read Summary
America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts. Read Summary
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. Read Summary
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority. Read Summary
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. Read Summary
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. Read Summary
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. Read Summary
Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense. Read Summary
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect. Read Summary
The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science. Read Summary
Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. Read Summary
It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. Read Summary
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. Read Summary
There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong. Read Summary
What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support? Read Summary
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason. Read Summary