To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.
You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen.
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned.
Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be.
Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.
This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
The true source of our sufferings has been our timidity.
National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.
Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs.
I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame.
The balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land.