I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries.
Having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than the same are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there; for there competition brings it down to the minimum value.
A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence, and good-humor, will go far toward securing to you the estimation of the world.
The physician is happy in the attachment of the families in which he practices. All think he has saved one of them, and he finds himself everywhere a welcome guest, a home in every house.
It is wonderful to me that old men should not be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress of decay.
Nothing betrays imbecility so much as the being insensible of it.
There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.
It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.
The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous.
The truth is, that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words.
I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly.
Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.
The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four words: ‘Be just and good,’ is that in which all our enquiries must end.
What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong.
Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United States; its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations.
We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them.
When you are doubting whether a thing is worth the trouble of going to see, recollect that you will never again be so near it. You may repent not having seen it, but you can never repent having seen it.
Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise, and the weather shall be little regarded. If the body is feeble, the mind will not be strong.
The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man.
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.