"Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?"
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."
"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."
"A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be."
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
"In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue."