History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.
Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.
My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty; to avoid attracting notice, and to keep my name out of the newspapers.
I do not agree that an age of pleasure is no compensation for a moment of pain.
If thinking men would have the courage to think for themselves, and to speak what they think, it would be found they do not differ in religious opinions as much as is supposed.
The most uninformed mind with a healthy body is happier than the wisest valetudinarian.
Of all the cankers of human happiness none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful an influence, as indolence.
Peace is our passion.
One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.
Sensibility of mind is indeed the parent of every virtue, but it is the parent of much misery, too.
Agreeable society is the first essential in constituting the happiness and of course the value of our existence.
Without society, and a society to our taste, men are never contented.
Everything is useful which contributes to fix the principles and practices of virtue.
A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims.
The best commentary on the principles of government which has ever been written.
You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.
Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.
With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole.
Preachers dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.
The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.