There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.
I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.
Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.
We believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.
The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.
The genuine and simple religion of Jesus will one day be restored: such as it was preached and practiced by Himself.
The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. – The Fruit Hunters.
As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.
Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.
I am a sect by myself, as far as I know.
A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.