“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.”
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers.”
“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely happier for it.”
“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
“The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.”
“I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.”
“The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.”
“Nothing gives a person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”
“The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.”
“It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.”
“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
“Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one's family and affairs.”
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
“Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.”
“It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.”
“I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.”
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual.”
“Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.”
“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”
“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.”
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”
“Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”