The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.
How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Virtue is not hereditary.
If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.
If anything had or could have a value equal to gold and silver, it would require no tender law; and if it had not that value it ought not to have such a law; and, therefore, all tender laws are tyrannical and unjust and calculated to support fraud and oppression.
I know not whether taxes are raised to fight wars, or wars are fought in order to raise taxes.
Government is best which governs least.
Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS...
The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of His existence and the immutability of His power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries.
The burden of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the quantity of taxes collected every year to pay the interest. If this quantity continue the same, the burden of the national debt is the same to all intents and purposes, be the capital more or less.
As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men.
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.
The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir.
The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence?