When writing the constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, John Adams wrote:I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading. - John Adams
Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument. - Thomas Jefferson
I wonder how so insupportable a thing as a bookseller was ever permitted to grow up in the Commonwealth. Many of our modern booksellers are but needless excrements, or rather vermin.
A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants. - Alexander Pope
If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul. - Russell Kirk