being myself a warm zealot for the attainment & enjoiment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.

the god who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time

may it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self...

but the only security of all is in a free press. the force of public opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. the agitation it produces must be submitted to. it is necessary to keep the waters pure.

if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. there is no safe deposit for these but with the...

the cement of this union is in the heart blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis.

it’s only merit was in being the first publication which carried the claim of our rights their whole length, and asserted that there was no rightful link of connection between us and England but that of being under the same king.

the last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. we ought, for so dear a stake, to sacrifice every attachment & every enmity.

we owe gratitude to France, justice to England, good will to all, and subservience to none ... it was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

this ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe. at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together.