A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remed...
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of r...
The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied...and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his governm...
Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of dista...
The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.
I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the ri...
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.--The Fruit Hunters
A republican government is slow to move yet when once in motion its momentum becomes irresistible.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional m...
Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take f...