Thomas Jefferson
The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in.Collection: Nature
Freedom, the first-born of science.Collection: Freedom
Nothing but good can result from an exchange of information and opinions between those whose circumstances and morals admit no doubt of the integrity of their views.Collection: Integrity
That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.Collection: Rights
If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.Collection: Party
I served with General Washington in die Legislature of Virginia...and...with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I never heard neither of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.Collection: Doctors
The merchant has no country .Collection: Country
The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us.Collection: Equality
From candlelight to early bedtime, I read.Collection: Book
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest.Collection: Exercise
When the heart is right, the feet are swift.Collection: Heart
Choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom.Collection: People
As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.Collection: Law
But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force.Collection: Party
Do not neglect your music. It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you.Collection: Music
The people are the ultimate guardians of their own liberties. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy . . . Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.Collection: Government
Perfection in wisdom, as well as in integrity, is neither required nor expected in these agents (public servants). It belongs not to man. The wise know too well their weaknesses to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.Collection: Wise
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.Collection: Inspirational
It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.Collection: Jesus
A strong body makes the mind strong.Collection: Strong
Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.Collection: Atheism
No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverageCollection: Wine
I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.Collection: Atheist
Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible.Collection: Long
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.Collection: Men
Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.Collection: Pride
Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .Collection: Men
Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.Collection: Religious
It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it (i.e. the Book of Revelations), and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherence of our own nightly dreams.Collection: Dream
If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press.Collection: Government
It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By a universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.Collection: Men
He does most in God's great world who does his best in his own little world.Collection: Doe
preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.Collection: Wisdom
To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.Collection: Christian
It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.Collection: Lying
Of all the errors which can possibly be committed to the education of youth, that of sending them to Europe is the most fatal. I see [clearly] that no American should come to Europe under 30 years of age.Collection: Education
We are here lounging our time away, doing nothing, and having nothing to do. It gives me great regret to be passing my time so uselessly when it could have been so importantly employed at home.Collection: Regret
Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.Collection: Government
It is Mortifying to suppose it possible that a people able and zealous to contend with the Enemy should be reduced to fold their Arms for want of the means of defence; yet no resources that we know of, ensure us against this event.Collection: Mean
May it be to the world... to assume the blessings and security of self-government.Collection: Freedom
Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one.Collection: Roots
Above all I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to so they won't forget the basic principles of freedom.Collection: People
I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender.Collection: Government
So much of the presidency is a matter of standing in the path of a Newsham Engine for Quenching Fires, opening one's mouth, and attempting to get a drink.Collection: Fire
I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.Collection: 4th Of July
Laws ... proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine.Collection: Character
But is an enemy so execrable that tho in captivity his wishes and comforts are to be disregarded and even crossed? I think not. It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.Collection: War
I believe from what I have lately seen that we should be substantially safe were our Citizens Armed, but we have not as many Arms as we have Enemies in the State.Collection: Believe
I have now the gloomy prospect of retiring from office loaded with serious debts, which will materially affect the tranquility of my retirement.Collection: Retirement