Thomas Jefferson
When, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his [Jesus'] day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples: and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from his lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian.Collection: Christian
I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. He is the most unfit man I know for such a place.Collection: Men
The price of barbecue is eternal vigilance.Collection: Barbecue
One generation cannot bind another.Collection: Generations
I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.Collection: Christian
The smell rewards the care.Collection: Smell
The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. (Jesus) pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the regions of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.Collection: Jesus
The President is bound to stop at the limits prescribed by our Constitution and law to the authorities in his hands, [and this] would apply in an occasion of peace as well as war.Collection: War
Although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice.Collection: Law
All the States but our own are sensible that knowlege is power.Collection: Education
All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.Collection: Religious
I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.Collection: Freedom
It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.Collection: Office
A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering.Collection: Adversity
The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.Collection: Government
Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under protection of habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.Collection: Freedom
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.Collection: Country
Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.Collection: Men
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.Collection: Integrity
The Christian god is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.Collection: Christian
It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate.Collection: Character
It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.Collection: Government
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood.Collection: Media Control
Civil officials have no business meddling in private religious affairs.Collection: Religious
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.Collection: Love
Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state'... is absolutely essential in a free society.Collection: Religious
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle... Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short.Collection: Lying
Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.Collection: Eye
Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.Collection: Government
I believe in both a creative and personal God, a divinely ordered universe, that man has an innate moral sense, and that Jesus was a great moral teacher, perhaps the greatest the world has witnessed.Collection: Teacher
The only way to win money out of a casino is to own one.Collection: Wisdom
Every gentleman plays billiards, but someone who plays billiards too well, is no gentleman.Collection: Play
We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.Collection: Running
Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.Collection: Morning
The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.Collection: Motivational
No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame, its parts, their functions and actions.Collection: Men
Sensibility of mind is indeed the parent of every virtue, but it is the parent of much misery, too.Collection: Parent
Everything is useful which contributes to fix the principles and practices of virtue.Collection: Practice
I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make.Collection: Choices
The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.Collection: Men
Our minds and hearts are free to believe everything or nothing at all - and it is our duty to protect and perpetuate this sacred culture of freedom.Collection: Believe
The happiest hours of my life have been spent in the flow of affection among friends.Collection: Flow
The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the states are independent as to everything within themselves and united as to everything respecting foreign nations. Let the general government be reduced to foreign concerns only.Collection: Independent
All power is inherent in the people.Collection: Gun
It [appears] that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.Collection: Exercise
It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.Collection: Rights
We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities.Collection: Peace
The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it; but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.Collection: Party
The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.Collection: Men