experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large,...

If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country it’s music. this is the favorite passion of my soul, & fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.

That our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than on our opinions in physicks or geometry. ... We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious Worship, place or Ministry whatsoever, nor shall be...

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, & to assume among the powers of the earth the equal & independant station. ... We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are...

Congress proceeded the same day to consider the declaration of Independance which had been reported & laid on the table the Friday preceding and on Monday referred to a commee of the whole. the pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds...

Number of souls in my family in Albemarle

beleive me Dear Sir there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a Union with Gr. Britain than I do.

our attachment to no nation on earth should supplant our attachment to liberty.

the frize to be ornamented with human figures as in Palladio B. 4. pl. 13.14.15.

a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics and divinity that ever were written.