I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.

Do you remember any instance where tyranny was destroyed and freedom established on its ruins, among a people possessing so small a share of virtue and public spirit? I recollect none, and this more than the British arms makes me fearful of final success, without a reform.

Time past, present, and to come, as also depth and height, near and afar off, are all one in God, one comprehensibility.

I had to make my history quick because there would be no future, merely a gossamer world blown about on the zeitgeist, till zeitgeist, the wind of the times, is blasted away by kamikaze, the wind of God.

Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. And faith, in turn, requires freedom. You can't have coerced state-sanctioned religion. It has to be utterly free.

God's will for your life is God's will for today, and it doesn't get any more glamorous than that.