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As You Are Entered With The Class Of Nat. Philosophy, Give To It The Hours Of Lecture, But Devote All Your Other Time To Mathematics, Avoiding Company As The Bane Of All Progress.

-Thomas Jefferson

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As You Are Entered

Thomas Jefferson

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As You Are Entered With The Class Of Nat. Philosophy, Give To It The Hours Of Lecture, But Devote All Your Other Time To Mathematics, Avoiding Company As The Bane Of All Progress.

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A Country Whose Buildings Are Of Wood, Can Never Increase In Its Improvements To Any Considerable Degree.... Whereas When Buildings Are Of Durable Materials, Every New Edifice Is An Actual And Permanent Acquisition To The State, Adding To Its Value As Well As To Its Ornament.

I Have No Fear That The Result Of Our Experiment Will Be That Men May Be Trusted To Govern Themselves Without A Master.

It Should Be Our Endeavor To Cultivate The Peace And Friendship Of Every Nation . . . . Our Interest Will Be To Throw Open The Doors Of Commerce, And To Knock Off All Its Shackles, Giving Perfect Freedom To All Persons For The Vent To Whatever They May Choose To Bring Into Our Ports, And Asking The Same In Theirs.

Be Assured That It Gives Much More Pain To The Mind To Be In Debt, Than To Do Without Any Article Whatever Which We May Seem To Want.

Never Throw Off The Best Affections Of Nature In The Moment When They Become Most Precious To Their Object; Nor Fear To Extend You Hand To Save Another, Lest You Should Sink Yourself.

To Penetrate And Dissipate These Clouds Of Darkness, The General Mind Must Be Strengthened By Education.

If There Is One Principle More Deeply Rooted In The Mind Of Every American, It Is That We Should Have Nothing To Do With Conquest.

The People Of Every Country Are The Only Safe Guardians Of Their Own Rights, And Are The Only Instruments Which Can Be Used For Their Destruction. And Certainly They Would Never Consent To Be So Used Were They Not Deceived. To Avoid This They Should Be Instructed To A Certain Degree.

I Really Look With Commiseration Over The Great Body Of My Fellow Citizens Who, Reading Newspapers, Live And Die In The Belief That They Have Known Something Of What Has Been Passing In Their Times.

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.

Those Who Labor In The Earth Are The Chosen People Of God.

While Prudence Will Endeavor To Avoid This Issue Of War, Bravery Will Prepare To Meet It.

Defend Our Liberties And Fashion Into One United People The Multitudes Brought Hither Out Of Many Kindred And Tongues.

Games Played With The Ball, And Others Of That Nature, Are Too Violent For The Body And Stamp No Character On The Mind.

The Failure Of One Thing Is Repaired By The Success Of Another.

He Who Knows Best Knows How Little He Knows.

Having Labored Faithfully In Establishing The Right Of Self-government, We See In The Rising Generation, Into Whose Hands It Is Passing, That Purity Of Principle And Energy Of Character Which Will Protect And Preserve It Through Their Day, And Deliver It Over To Their Sons As They Receive It From Their Fathers.

In A Republican Nation Whose Citizens Are To Be Led By Reason And Persuasion And Not By Force, The Art Of Reasoning Becomes Of First Importance.

I Am Savage Enough To Prefer The Woods, The Wilds, And The Independence Of Monticello, To All The Brilliant Pleasures Of This Gaycapital [paris].

The Doctrines Of Jesus Are Simple, And Tend To All The Happiness Of Man.

[t]he People Seem To Have Deposited The Monarchical And Taken Up The Republican Government With As Much Ease As Would Have Attended Their Throwing Off An Old And Putting On A New Suit Of Clothes.

I Duly Acknowledge That I Have Gone Through A Long Life, With Fewer Circumstances Of Affliction Than Are The Lot Of Most Men. Uninterrupted Health, A Competence For Every Reasonable Want, Usefulness To My Fellow-citizens, A Good Portion Of Their Esteem, No Complaint Against The World Which Has Sufficiently Honored Me, And Above All, A Family Which Has Blessed Me By Their Affections, And Never By Their Conduct Given Me A Moment's Pain.

No Freeman Shall Be Debarred The Use Of Arms.

Second Amendment

Among The Most Inestimable Of Our Blessings Is That ... Of Liberty To Worship Our Creator In The Way We Think Most Agreeable To His Will; A Liberty Deemed In Other Countries Incompatible With Good Government And Yet Proved By Our Experience To Be Its Best Support.

It Is A Misnomer To Call A Government Republican In Which A Branch Of The Supreme Power Is Independent Of The Nation.

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.

Ridicule Is The Only Weapon Which Can Be Used Against Unintelligible Propositions.

Your Sect [the Jews] By Its Sufferings Has Furnished A Remarkable Proof Of The Universal Point Of Religious Insolence, Inherent In Every Sect, Disclaimed By All While Feeble And Practised By All When In Power. Our Laws Have Applied The Only Antidote To This Vice, Protecting Our Religions, As They Do Our Civil Rights, By Putting All On Equal Footing. But More Remains To Be Done.

I Own That I Am Not A Friend To A Very Energetic Government. It Is Always Oppressive.

I Have No Ambition To Govern Men; It Is A Painful And Thankless Office.

To Seek Out The Best [persons To Serve In The Government] Though The Whole Union, We Must Resort To The Information Which From The Best Of Men, Acting Disinterestedly And With Ther Purest Motives, Is Something Incorrect....no Duty The Executive Had To Perform Was So Trying As To Put The Right Man In The Right Place.

Never Buy What You Do Not Want, Because It Is Cheap; It Will Be Dear To You.

Men By Their Constitutions Are Naturally Divided Into Two Parties: 1. Those Who Fear And Distrust The People, And Wish To Draw All Powers From Them Into The Hands Of The Higher Classes. 2. Those Who Identify Themselves With The People, Have Confidence In Them, Cherish And Consider Them As The Most Honest And Safe, Although Not The Most Wise Depositary Of The Public Interests. In Every Country These Two Parties Exist, And In Every One Where They Are Free To Think, Speak, And Write, They Will Declare Themselves.

Never Suppose That In Any Possible Situation Or Under Any Circumstances That It Is Best For You To Do A Dishonorable Thing However Slightly So It May Appear To You... Encourage All Your Virtuous Dispositions, And Exercise Them Whenever An Opportunity Arises, Being Assured That They Will Gain Strength By Exercise ... And That Exercise Will Make Them Habitual.

Question Boldly Even The Existence Of God.

Existence Of God

And Botany I Rank With The Most Valuable Sciences, Whether We Consider Its Subjects As Furnishing The Principal Subsistence Of Life To Man And Beast, Delicious Varieties For Our Tables, Refreshments From Our Orchards, The Adornments Of Our Flower-borders, Shade And Perfume Of Our Groves, Materials For Our Buildings, Or Medicaments For Our Bodies.

Reason And Free Inquiry Are The Only Effective Agents Against Error. Give A Loose To Them, They Will Support The True Religion By Bringing Every False One To Their Tribunal, To The Test Of Their Investigation. They Are The Natural Enemies Of Error And Error Only. Had Not The Roman Government Permitted Free Inquiry, Christianity Could Never Have Been Introduced. Had Not Free Inquiry Been Indulged At The Era Of The Reformation, The Corruption Of Christianity Could Not Have Been Purged Away.

Peace And Friendship With All Mankind Is Our Wisest Policy, And I Wish We May Be Permitted To Pursue It.

I Had Rather Ask An Enlargement Of Power From The Nation, Where It Is Found Necessary, Than To Assume It By A Construction Which Would Make Our Powers Boundless.

When We Consider How Much Climate Contributes To The Happiness Of Our Condition, By The Fine Sensation It Excites, And The Productions It Is The Parent Of, We Have Reason To Value Highly The Accident Of Birth In Such A One As That Of Virginia.

Self-interest, Or Rather Self-love, Or Egoism, Has Been More Plausibly Substituted As The Basis Of Morality.

Let The Farmer Forevermore Be Honored In His Calling; For They Who Labor In The Earth Are The Chosen People Of God.

"it Astonishes Me To Find... [that So Many] Of Our Countrymen... Should Be Contented To Live Under A System Which Leaves To Their Governors The Power Of Taking From Them The Trial By Jury In Civil Cases, Freedom Of Religion, Freedom Of The Press, Freedom Of Commerce, The Habeas Corpus Laws, And Of Yoking Them With A Standing Army. This Is A Degeneracy In The Principles Of Liberty... Which I [would Not Have Expected For At Least] Four Centuries."

The Flames Kindled On The Fourth Of July, 1776, Have Spread Over Too Much Of The Globe To Be Extinguished By The Feeble Engines Of Despotism; On The Contrary, They Will Consume These Engines And All Who Work Them.

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.

I Have Ever Deemed It Fundamental For The United States Never To Take Active Part In The Quarrels Of Europe.... They Are Nations Of Eternal War.

I Prefer Dangerous Freedom Over Peaceful Slavery.

A Man's Management Of His Own Purse Speaks Volumes About Character

I Do Verily Believe That A Single, Consolidated Government Would Become The Most Corrupt Government On The Earth.

I Am Sure The Man Who Powders Most, Perfumes Most, Embroiders Most, And Talks Most Nonsense, Is Most Admired. Though To Be Candid, There Are Some Who Have Too Much Good Sense To Esteem Such Monkey-like Animals As These, In Whose Formation, As The Saying Is, The Tailors And Barbers Go Halves With God Almighty.

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.

Our Attachment To No Nation On Earth Should Supplant Our Attachment To Liberty.

I Consider The Government Of The U.s. As Interdicted By The Constitution From Intermeddling With Religious Institutions, Their Doctrines, Discipline, Or Exercises.

Required To Be Constantly Recumbent I Write Slowly And With Difficulty.... Weakened In Body By Infirmities And In Mind By Age, Now Far Gone Into My 83rd Year, Reading One Newspaper Only And Forgetting Immediately What I Read.

The Clergy, By Getting Themselves Established By Law And In-grafted Into The Machine Of Government, Have Been A Very Formidable Engine Against The Civil And Religious Rights Of Man.

What Has Been The Effect Of Coercion? To Make One Half The World Fools, And The Other Half Hypocrites. To Support Roguery And Error All Over The Earth.... [instead] Reason And Persuasion Are The Only Practicable Instruments. To Make Way For These, Free Enquiry Must Be Indulged; And How Can We Wish Others To Indulge It While We Refuse It Ourselves?

But Friendship Is Precious, Not Only In The Shade, But In The Sunshine Of Life, And Thanks To A Benevolent Arrangement The Greater Part Of Life Is Sunshine.

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.

It Is Rare That The Public Sentiment Decides Immorally Or Unwisely, And The Individual Who Differs From It Ought To Distrust And Examine Well His Own Opinion.

I Should . . . Prefer Swallowing One Incomprehensibility Rather Than Two. It Requires One Effort Only To Admit The Single Incomprehensibility Of Matter Endowed With Thought, And Two To Believe, First That Of An Existence Called Spirit, Of Which We Have Neither Evidence Nor Idea, And Then Secondly How That Spirit, Which Has Neither Extension Nor Solidity, Can Put Material Organs Into Motion.

As New Discoveries Are Made, New Truths Discovered And Manners And Opinions Change With The Change Of Circumstances, Institutions Must Advance Also To Keep Pace With The Times.

Whether I Retire To Bed Early Or Late, I Rise With The Sun.

The Fumes Of The Most Disordered Imaginations Were Recorded In Their Religious Code, As Special Communications Of The Deity; And As It Could Not But Happen That, In The Course Of Ages, Events Would Now And Then Turn Up To Which Some Of These Vague Rhapsodies Might Be Accommodated By The Aid Of Allegories, Figures, Types, And Other Tricks Upon Words, They Have Not Only Preserved Their Credit With The Jews Of All Subsequent Times, But Are The Foundation Of Much Of The Religions Of Those Who Have Schismatised From Them.

Believing That The Happiness Of Mankind Is Best Promoted By The Useful Pursuits Of Peace, That On These Alone A Stable Prosperity Can Be Founded, That The Evils Of War Are Great In Their Endurance, And Have A Long Reckoning For Ages To Come, I Have Used My Best Endeavors To Keep Our Country Uncommitted In The Troubles Which Afflict Europe, And Which Assail Us On Every Side.

The Way To Have Good And Safe Government Is Not To Trust It All To One, But To Divide It Among The Many, Distributing To Everyone Exactly The Functions In Which He Is Competent ... It Is By Dividing And Subdividing These Republics From The Great National One Down Through All Its Subordinations Until It Ends In The Administration Of Everyman's Farm By Himself, By Placing Under Everyone What His Own Eye May Superintend, That All Will Be Done For The Best.

The Elective Franchise, If Guarded As The Ark Of Our Safety, Will Peaceably Dissipate All Combinations To Subvert A Constitution, Dictated By The Wisdom, And Resting On The Will Of The People.

They Are Exactly The Persons Who Are To Succeed To The Government Of Our Country And To Rule Its Future Enmities, Its Friendships And Fortunes.

The Introduction Of So Powerful An Agent As Steam [to A Carriage On Wheels] Will Make A Great Change In The Situation Of Man.

The States Should Be Watchful To Note Every Material Usurpation On Their Rights; To Denounce Them As They Occur In The Most Peremptory Terms; To Protest Against Them As Wrongs To Which Our Present Submission Shall Be Considered, Not As Acknowledgments Or Precedents Of Rights, But As A Temporary Yielding To The Lesser Evil, Until Their Accumulation Shall Overweigh That Of Separation.

The Religion-builders Have So Distorted And Deformed The Doctrines Of Jesus, So Muffled Them In Mysticism, Fancies, And Falsehoods.

If Any State In The Union Will Declare That It Prefers Separation... To A Continuance In Union... I Have No Hesitation In Saying, 'let Us Separate.

The Earth Belongs To The Living. No Man Can, By Natural Right, Oblige The Lands He Occupied Or The Persons Who Succeed Him In That Occupation, To The Payment Of Debts Contracted By Him. For If He Could, He Might, During His Own Life, Eat Up The Use Of The Lands For Several Generations To Come, And Then The Lands Would Belong To The Dead, And Not To The Living. No Generation Can Contract Debts Greater Than May Be Paid During The Course Of Its Own Existence.

In Every Country Where Man Is Free To Think And To Speak, Difference Of Opinion Will Arise From Difference Of Perception, And The Imperfection Of Reason; But These Differences, When Permitted, As In This Happy Country, To Purify Themselves By Free Discussion, Are But As Passing Clouds Overspreading Our Land Transiently, And Leaving Our Horizon More Bright And Serene.

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 Best Commentary On The Principles Of Government Which Has Ever Been Written.

For Here We Are Not Afraid To Follow Truth Wherever It May Lead.

When Once A Republic Is Corrupted, There Is No Possibility Of Remedying Any Of The Growing Evils But By Removing The Corruption And Restoring Its Lost Principles; Every Other Correction Is Either Useless Or A New Evil.

If, In My Retirement To The Humble Station Of A Private Citizen, I Am Accompanied With The Esteem And Approbation Of My Fellow Citizens, Trophies Obtained By The Bloodstained Steel, Or The Tattered Flags Of The Tented Field, Will Never Be Envied. The Care Of Human Life And Happiness, And Not Their Destruction, Is The First And Only Legitimate Object Of Good Government.

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.

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.

You Have Never By A Word Or A Deed Given Me One Moment's Uneasiness; On The Contrary I Have Felt Perpetual Gratitude To Heaven Forhaving Given Me, In You, A Source Of So Much Pure And Unmixed Happiness.

If We Cannot Secure All Our Rights, Let Us Secure What We Can.

The Whole Body Of The Nation Is The Sovereign Legislative, Judiciary, And Executive Power For Itself. The Inconvenience Of Meeting To Exercise These Powers In Person, And Their Inaptitude To Exercise Them, Induce Them To Appoint Special Organs To Declare Their Legislative Will, To Judge And To Execute It. It Is The Will Of The Nation Which Makes The Law Obligatory.

Dependence Leads To Subservience.

Enemies In War, In Peace Friends.

No Experiment Can Be More Interesting Than That We Are Now Trying, And Which We Trust Will End In Establishing The Fact, That Man May Be Governed By Reason And Truth. Our First Object Should Therefore Be, To Leave Open To Him All The Avenues To Truth. The Most Effectual Hitherto Found, Is The Freedom Of The Press. It Is, Therefore, The First Shut Up By Those Who Fear The Investigation Of Their Actions.

Freedom Of Speech

Nothing Is Troublesome That We Do Willingly.

I View Great Cities As Pestilential To The Morals, The Health, And The Liberties Of Man.

Establish The Eternal Truth That Acquiescence Under Insult Is Not The Way To Escape War.

I Am A Real Christian, That Is To Say, A Cisciple Of The Doctrines Of Jesus. I Have Little Doubt That Our Whole Country Will Soon Be Rallied To The Unity Of Our Creator.

A Man Has A Right To Use A Saw, An Axe, A Plane, Separately; May He Not Combine Their Uses On The Same Piece Of Wood? He Has A Right To Use His Knife To Cut His Meat, A Fork To Hold It; May A Patentee Take From Him The Right To Combine Their Use On The Same Subject? Such A Law, Instead Of Enlarging Our Conveniences, As Was Intended, Would Most Fearfully Abridge Them, And Crowd Us By Monopolies Out Of The Use Of The Things We Have.

A Generation May Bind Itself As Long As Its Majority Continues In Life; When That Has Disappeared, Another Majority Is In Place, Holds All The Rights And Powers Their Predecessors Once Held, And May Change Their Laws And Institutions To Suit Themselves. Nothing Then Is Unchangeable But The Inherent And Inalienable Rights Of Man.

He [washington] Has Often Declared To Me That He Considered Our New Constitution As An Experiment On The Practicability Of Republican Government, And With What Dose Of Liberty Man Could Be Trusted For His Own Good; That He Was Determined The Experiment Should Have A Fair Trial, And Would Lose The Last Drop Of His Blood In Support Of It. And These Declarations He Repeated To Me The Oftener And The More Pointedly.

Paper Money Is Liable To Be Abused, Has Been, Is, And Forever Will Be Abused, In Every Country In Which It Is Permitted.

I Abhor War And View It As The Greatest Scourge Of Mankind.

No Society Is So Precious As That Of One’s Own Family.

The Natural Cause Of The Human Mind Is Certainly From Credulity To Skepticism.

The Will Of The People Is The Only Legitimate Foundation Of Any Government, And To Protect Its Free Expression Should Be Our First Object.

Men As Well As Rivers Grow Crooked By Following The Path Of Least Resistance.

[t]he Dignity Of Parliament It Seems Can Brook No Opposition To It's Power. Strange That A Set Of Men Who Have Made Sale Of Theirvirtue To The Minister Should Yet Talk Of Retaining Dignity!

In Short I Must Confide In You To Take Such Care Of The Men Under You As An Economical Householder Would Of His Own Family, Doingevery Thing Within Himself As Far As He Can, And Calling For As Few Supplies As Possible. The Less You Depend For Supplies From This Quarter, The Less You Will Be Disappointed.

It Is True That In The Meantime We Are Suffering Deeply In Spirit, And Incurring The Horrors Of A War And Long Oppressions Of Enormous Public Debt.

Truth And Reason Are Eternal. They Have Prevailed. And They Will Eternally Prevail; However, In Times And Places They May Be Overborne For A While By Violence, Military, Civil, Or Ecclesiastical.

In Truth, Politeness Is Artificial Good Humor, It Covers The Natural Want Of It, And Ends By Rendering Habitual A Substitute Nearly Equivalent To The Real Virtue. It Is The Practice Of Sacrificing To Those Whom We Meet In Society, All The Little Inconveniences And Preferences Which Will Gratify Them, And Deprive Us Of Nothing Worth A Moment's Consideration; It Is The Giving A Pleasing And Flattering Turn To Our Expressions, Which Will Conciliate Others, And Make Them Pleased With Us As Well As Themselves. How Cheap A Price For The Good Will Of Another!

God Has Formed Us Moral Agents... That We May Promote The Happiness Of Those With Whom He Has Placed Us In Society, By Acting Honestly Towards All, Benevolently To Those Who Fall Within Our Way, Respecting Sacredly Their Rights, Bodily And Mental, And Cherishing Especially Their Freedom Of Conscience, As We Value Our Own.

One Imputation In Particular Has Been Repeated Till It Seems As If Some At Least Believed It: That I Am An Enemy To Commerce. They Admit Me A Friend Of Agriculture, And Suppose Me An Enemy To The Only Means Of Disposing Of Its Produce.

I Prefer The Tumult Of Liberty To The Quiet Of Servitude

Female Education ... Has Occupied My Attention So Far Only As The Education Of My Own Daughters ... I Thought It Essential To Give Them A Solid Education Which Might Enable Them, When Become Mothers, To Educate Their Own Daughters, And Even To Direct The Course For Sons, Should Their Fathers Be.

I Like To See The People Awake And Alert.

If We Are Made In Some Degree For Others, Yet In A Greater Are We Made For Ourselves.

If I Could Not Go To Heaven With But A Party, I Would Not Go There At All. Therefore, I Am Not Of The Party Of Federalists. But I Am Much Further From That Of The Anti-federalists.

When A Uniform Exercise Of Kindness To Prisoners On Our Part Has Been Returned By As Uniform Severity On The Part Of Our Enemies,you Must Excuse Me For Saying It Is High Time, By Other Lessons, To Teach Respect To The Dictates Of Humanity; In Such A Case, Retaliation Becomes An Act Of Benevolence.

You See I Am An Enthusiast On The Subject Of The Arts.

For A People Who Are Free, And Who Mean To Remain So, A Well-organized And Armed Militia Is Their Best Security.

We Have No Paupers ... The Great Mass Of Our [united States] Population Is Of Laborers; Our Rich, Who Can Live Without Labor, Either Manual Or Professional, Being Few, And Of Moderate Wealth. Most Of The Laboring Class Possess Property, Cultivate Their Own Lands, Have Families, And From The Demand For Their Labor Are Enabled To Exact From The Rich And The Competent Such Prices As Enable Them To Be Fed Abundantly, Clothed Above Mere Decency, To Labor Moderately And Raise Their Families. ... Can Any Condition Of Society Be More Desirable Than This?

Educate And Inform The Whole Mass Of The People. Enable Them To See That It Is Their Interest To Preserve Peace And Order, And They Will Preserve Them.

No Person Shall Be Capable Of Being A Delegate For More Than Three Years In Any Term Of Six.

The Issuing Power [of Money] Should Be Taken From The Banks And Restored To The People, To Whom It Properly Belongs.

Democracies Have

Delay Is Preferable To Error.

Whose Foot Is To Be The Measure To Which Ours Are All To Be Cut Or Stretched?

In The Legislature, The House Of Representatives Is Chosen By Less Than Half The People, And Not At All In Proportion To Those Who Do Choose. The Senate Are Still More Disproportionate, And For Long Terms Of Irresponsibility. In The Executive, The Governor Is Entirely Independent Of The Choice Of The People, And Of Their Control; His Council Equally So, And At Best But A Fifth Wheel To A Wagon. In The Judiciary, The Judges Of The Highest Courts Are Dependent On None But Themselves.

I Think Our Governments Will Remain Virtuous For Many Centuries; As Long As They Are Chiefly Agricultural.

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.

The Art Of Life Is The Art Of Avoiding Pain.

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.

I Am Not An Advocate For Frequent Changes In Laws And Constitutions, But Laws And Institutions Must Go Hand In Hand With The Progress Of The Human Mind.

We Owe Gratitude To France, Justice To England, Good Will To All, And Subservience To None ... It Was By The Sober Sense Of Our Citizens That We Were Safely And Steadily Conducted From Monarchy To Republicanism, And It Is By The Same Agency Alone We Can Be Kept From Falling Back.

Private Fortunes, In The Present State Of Our Circulation, Are At The Mercy Of Those Self-created Money Lenders, And Are Prostrated By The Floods Of Nominal Money With Which Their Avarice Deluges Us.

I Am Never Tempted To Pray But When A Warm Feeling For My Friends Comes Athwart My Heart.

The Christian Religion, When Divested Of The Rags In Which They [the Clergy] Have Enveloped It, And Brought To The Original Purity And Simplicity Of It's Benevolent Institutor, Is A Religion Of All Others Most Friendly To Liberty, Science, And The Freest Expansion Of The Human Mind.

For If One Link In Nature's Chain Might Be Lost, Another Might Be Lost, Until The Whole Of Things Will Vanish By Piecemeal.

Mankind Are More Disposed To Suffer, While Evils Are Sufferable, Than To Right Themselves By Abolishing The Forms To Which They Are Accustomed.

Unalienable Rights

This Is Perhaps The Most Important Statement On Religion Ever Made. It Clarified The Intent Of The Founders Of The Constitution Irrespective Of The Attempts Of Modern Day Religious Revisionists.

A Judiciary Independent Of A King Or Executive Alone, Is A Good Thing; But Independence Of The Will Of The Nation Is A Solecism, At Least In A Republican Government.

During The Course Of Administration, And In Order To Disturb It, The Artillery Of The Press Has Been Levelled Against Us, Charged With Whatsoever Its Licentiousness Could Devise Or Dare. These Abuses Of An Institution So Important To Freedom And Science Are Deeply To Be Regretted, Inasmuch As They Tend To Lessen Its Usefulness And To Sap Its Safety.

If We Suffer Ourselves To Be Frightened From Our Post By Mere Lying, Surely The Enemy Will Use That Weapon; For What One So Cheap To Those Of Whose System Of Politics Morality Makes No Part?

Although Our Prospect Is Peace, Our Policy And Purpose Are To Provide For Defense By All Those Means To Which Our Resources Are Competent.

Printers Shall Be Liable To Legal Prosecution For Printing And Publishing False Facts Injurious To The Party Prosecuting: But They Shall Be Under No Other Restraint.

Good Humor Is One Of The Preservatives Of Our Peace And Tranquility.

Peace And Tranquility

Hemp Is One Of The Greatest, Most Important Substances Of Our Nation

But Of All The Views Of This Law [universal Education] None Is More Important, None More Legitimate, Than That Of Rendering The People The Safe, As They Are The Ultimate, Guardians Of Their Own Liberty.

What All Agree Upon Is Probably Right; What No Two Agree In Most Probably Is Wrong.

Positive Atheism

It Has Been A Source Of Great Pain To Me To Have Met With So Many Among [my] Opponents Who Had Not The Liberality To Distinguish Between Political And Social Opposition; Who Transferred At Once To The Person, The Hatred They Bore To His Political Opinions.

Political Opinions

The Good Opinion Of Mankind, Like The Lever Of Archimedes, With The Given Fulcrum, Moves The World.

Our Legislators Are Not Sufficiently Apprized Of The Rightful Limits Of Their Power; That Their True Office Is To Declare And Enforce Only Our Natural Rights And Duties, And To Take None Of Them From Us.

Democrats Consider The People As The Safest Depository Of Power In The Last Resort; They Cherish Them, Therefore, And Wish To Leave In Them All The Powers To The Exercise Of Which They Are Competent.

Never Use Two Words When One Will Do.

It Can Never Be Too Often Repeated, That The Time For Fixing Every Essential Right On A Legal Basis Is While Our Rulers Are Honest, And Ourselves United.

Congress Has Scarcely Any Thing To Employ Them, And Complain That The Place [washington, D.c.] Is Remarkably Dull.

The Children Of Israel In The Wilderness, Led By A Cloud By Day, And A Pillar Of Fire By Night.

It Is Too Late In The Day For Men Of Sincerity To Pretend They Believe In The Platonic Mysticisms That Three Are One, And One Is Three; And Yet That The One Is Not Three, And The Three Are Not One.

I Find Friendship To Be Like Wine, Raw When New, Ripened With Age, The True Old Man's Milk And Restorative Cordial.

When An Instrument Admits Two Constructions, The One Safe, The Other Dangerous, The One Precise, The Other Indefinite, I Prefer That Which Is Safe And Precise.

The Government Created By This Compact Was Not Made The Exclusive Or Final Judge Of The Extent Of The Powers Delegated To Itself; Since That Would Have Made Its Discretion, And Not The Constitution, The Measure Of Its Powers.

The Days Of Life Are Consumed, One By One, Without An Object Beyond The Present Moment; Ever Flying From The Ennui Of That, Yet Carrying It With Us; Eternally In Pursuit Of Happiness, Which Keeps Eternally Before Us. If Death Or Bankruptcy Happen To Trip Us Out Of The Circle, It Is Matter For The Buzz Of The Evening, And Is Completely Forgotten By The Next Morning.

Pursuit Of Happiness

Let Those Flatter Who Fear; It Is Not An American Art .

I Do Not Know Whether You Are Fond Of Chemical Reading. There Are Some Things In This Science Worth Reading.

To Make Us One Nation As To Foreign Concerns, And Keep Us Distinct In Domestic Ones Gives The Outline Of The Proper Division Of Powers Between The General [national] And Particular [state] Governments.

The Only True Corrective Of Constitutional Abuses Is Education.

Religions Are All Alike- Founded Upon Fables And Mythologies.

Secular Society

Whensoever The General Government Assumes Undelegated Powers, Its Acts Are Unauthoritative, Void, And Of No Force.

Though [the People] May Acquiesce, They Cannot Approve What They Do Not Understand.

No Other Depositories Of Power [but The People Themselves] Have Ever Yet Been Found, Which Did Not End In Converting To Their Own Profit The Earnings Of Those Committed To Their Charge.

The Diffusion Of Information And The Arraignment Of All Abuses At The Bar Of Public Reason, I Deem [one Of] The Essential Principles Of Our Government, And Consequently [one Of] Those Which Ought To Shape Its Administration.

The Contradictory Experiments Of Chemists Leave Us At Liberty To Conclude What We Please. My Conclusion Is, That Art Has Not Yet Invented Sufficient Aids To Enable Such Subtle Bodies [air, Light, &c.] To Make A Well-defined Impression On Organs As Blunt As Ours; That It Is Laudable To Encourage Investigation But To Hold Back Conclusion.

Whenever You Do A Thing, Act As If All The World Were Watching.

Equal And Exact Justice To All Men, Of Whatever State Or Persuasion.

If We Move In Mass, Be It Ever So Circuitously, We Shall Attain Our Object; But If We Break Into Squads, Everyone Pursuing The Path He Thinks Most Direct, We Become An Easy Conquest To Those Who Can Now Barely Hold Us In Check.

It Is A Wise Rule And Should Be Fundamental In A Government Disposed To Cherish Its Credit, And At The Same Time To Restrain The Use Of It Within The Limits Of Its Faculties, "never To Borrow A Dollar Without Laying A Tax In The Same Instant For Paying The Interest Annually, And The Principal Within A Given Term; And To Consider That Tax As Pledged To The Creditors On The Public Faith."

[t]he Opinion Which Gives To The Judges The Right To Decide What Laws Are Constitutional And What Not, Not Only For Themselves, In Their, Own Sphere Of Action, But For The Legislature And Executive Also In Their Spheres, Would Make The Judiciary A Despotic Branch.

The Spirit Of 1776 Is Not Dead. It Had Only Been Slumbering. The Body Of The American People Is Substantially Republican.

Every Experience Deeply Felt In Life Needs To Be Passed Along. Wheather It Be Through Words And Music, Chiseled In Stone, Painted With A Brush, Or Sewn With A Needle, It Is A Way Of Reaching For Immortality.

The System Of Banking Have[for]ever Reprobated. I Contemplate It As A Blot Left In All Our Constitutions, Which, If Not Covered, Will End In Their Destruction, Which Is Already Hit By The Gamblers In Corruption, And Is Sweeping Away In Its Progress The Fortunes And Morals Of Our Citizens.

I Can Never Fear That Things Will Go Far Wrong Where Common Sense Has Fair Play.

Every Nation Has A Right To Govern Itself Internally Under What Forms It Pleases, And To Change These Forms At Its Own Will.

Our Ancestors ... Possessed A Right, Which Nature Has Given To All Men, Of Departing From The Country In Which Chance, Not Choice Has Placed Them.

An Acre Of The Best Ground For Hemp, Is To Be Selected And Sewn In Hemp And Be Kept For A Permanent Hemp Patch.

The People, Especially When Moderately Instructed, Are The Only Safe, Because The Only Honest, Depositaries Of The Public Rights, And Should Therefore Be Introduced Into The Administration Of Them In Every Function To Which They Are Sufficient; They Will Err Sometimes And Accidentally, But Never Designedly, And With A Systematic And Persevering Purpose Of Overthrowing The Free Principles Of The Government.

Man Once Surrendering His Reason, Has No Remaining Guard Against Absurdities The Most Monstrous, And Like A Ship Without Rudder, Is The Sport Of Every Wind. With Such Persons, Gullibility, Which They Call Faith, Takes The Helm From The Hand Of Reason, And The Mind Becomes A Wreck.

We Have Counted The Cost Of This Contest, And Find Nothing So Dreadful As Voluntary Slavery.-honor, Justice, And Humanity, Forbid Us Tamely To Surrender That Freedom Which We Received From Our Gallant Ancestors, And Which Our Innocent Posterity Have A Right To Receive From Us. We Cannot Endure The Infamy And Guilt Of Resigning Succeeding Generations To That Wretchedness Which Inevitably Awaits Them, If We Basely Entail Hereditary Bondage Upon Them.

When We Get Piled Upon One Another In Large Cities, As In Europe, We Shall Become As Corrupt As Europe.

Legislators Invent Too Many Devices For Subdividing Property, Only Taking Care To Let Their Subdivisions Go Hand In Hand With The Natural Affections Of The Human Mind.

I Sincerely Believe That Banking Establishments Are More Dangerous Than Standing Armies, And That The Principle Of Spending Money To Be Paid By Posterity, Under The Name Of Funding, Is But Swindling Futurity On A Large Scale.

The Information Of The People At Large Can Alone Make Them The Safe As They Are The Sole Depositary Of Our Political And Religious Freedom.

I Think With The Romans, That The General Of Today Should Be A Soldier Tomorrow If Necessary.

Our [virginia's] Act For Freedom Of Religion Is Extremely Applauded. The Ambassadors And Ministers Of The Several Nations Of Europe Resident At This Court Have Asked Me Copies Of It To Send To Their Sovereigns, And It Is Inserted At Full Length In Several Books Now In The Press; Among Others, In The New Encyclopédie. I Think It Will Produce Considerable Good Even In Those Countries Where Ignorance, Superstition, Poverty And Oppression Of Body And Mind In Every Form, Are So Firmly Settled On The Mass Of The People, That Their Redemption From Them Can Never Be Hoped.

Taste Cannot Be Controlled By Law. We Must Resist At All Costs Any Attempt To Regulate Our Individual Freedoms And To Legislate Our Personal Moralities.

The Constitution On Which Our Union Rests, Shall Be Administered By Me [as President] According To The Safe And Honest Meaning Contemplated By The Plain Understanding Of The People Of The United States At The Time Of Its Adoption - A Meaning To Be Found In The Explanations Of Those Who Advocated, Not Those Who Opposed It, And Who Opposed It Merely Lest The Construction Should Be Applied Which They Denounced As Possible.

A Prince Whose Character Is Thus Marked By Every Act Which May Define A Tyrant, Is Unfit To Be The Ruler Of A People Who Mean To Be Free.

Of All The Cankers Of Human Happiness None Corrodes With So Silent, Yet So Baneful An Influence, As Indolence.

If Ever This Vast Country Is Brought Under A Single Government, It Will Be One Of The Most Extensive Corruption, Indifferent And Incapable Of A Wholesome Care Over So Wide A Spread Of Surface. This Will Not Be Borne, And You Will Have To Choose Between Reform And Revolution. If I Know The Spirit Of This Country, The One Or The Other Is Inevitable.

Government Governed Least Is Government Governed Best.

It Is Time Enough, For The Rightful Purposes Of Civil Government, For Its Officers To Interfere [in The Propagation Of Religious Teachings] When Principles Break Out Into Overt Acts Against Peace And Good Order.

I Sincerely Congratulate You On The Arrival Of The Mockingbird. Learn All The Children To Venerate It As A Superior Being In The Form Of A Bird, Or As A Being Which Will Haunt Them If Any Harm Is Done To Itself Or Its Eggs.

It Is A Cruel Thought, That, When We Feel Ourselves Standing On The Firmest Ground In Every Respect, The Cursed Arts Of Our Secret Enemies, Combining With Other Causes, Should Effect, By Depreciating Our Money, What The Open Arms Of A Powerful Enemy Could Not.

Wine From Long Habit Has Become An Indispensable For My Health

Sir,-your Letter Of February The 18th Came To Hand On The 1st Instant; And The Request Of The History Of My Physical Habits Would Have Puzzled Me Not A Little, Had It Not Been For The Model With Which You Accompanied It, Of Doctor Rush's Answer To A Similar Inquiry. I Live So Much Like Other People, That I Might Refer To Ordinary Life As A History Of My Own. Like My Friend The Doctor, I Have Lived Temperately, Eating Very Little Animal Food, And That Not As An Aliment, So Much As A Condiment For The Vegetables, Which Constitute My Principle Diet.

Great Innovations Should Not Be Forced On Slender Majorities.

We Must Endeavor To Forget Our Former Love For Them [the British] And To Hold Them, As We Hold The Rest Of Mankind, Enemies In War, In Peace Friends.

It Is A Happy Circumstance In Human Affairs That Evils Which Are Not Cured In One Way Will Cure Themselves In Some Other.

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