Edmund Burke: “I have lived too long to be served by apologies, or to stand in need of them.”

Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.

If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.

I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.

They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.