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While Wading Through The Whimsies, The Puerilities, And Unintelligible Jargon Of This Work [plato's Republic], I Laid It Down Often To Ask Myself How It Could Have Been That The World Should Have So Long Consented To Give Reputation To Such Nonsense As This?

-Thomas Jefferson

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While Wading Through The

Thomas Jefferson

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While Wading Through The Whimsies, The Puerilities, And Unintelligible Jargon Of This Work [plato's Republic], I Laid It Down Often To Ask Myself How It Could Have Been That The World Should Have So Long Consented To Give Reputation To Such Nonsense As This?

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History, I Believe, Furnishes No Example Of A Priest-ridden People Maintaining A Free Civil Government. This Marks The Lowest Grade Of Ignorance Of Which Their Civil As Well As Religious Leaders Will Always Avail Themselves For Their Own Purposes.

In The Middle Ages Of Christianity Opposition To The State Opinions Was Hushed. The Consequence Was, Christianity Became Loaded With All The Romish Follies. Nothing But Free Argument, Raillery & Even Ridicule Will Preserve The Purity Of Religion.

It Is Not Only Vain, But Wicked, In A Legislator To Frame Laws In Opposition To The Laws Of Nature, And To Arm Them With The Terrors Of Death. This Is Truly Creating Crimes In Order To Punish Them.

No Race Of Kings Has Ever Presented Above One Man Of Common Sense In Twenty Generations.

I Could Say Much About Politics, Our Only Entertainment Here, But You Would Not Care A Fig About That.

Peace, Commerce And Honest Friendship With All Nations; Entangling Alliances With None.

I Tremble For My Country When I Reflect That God Is Just; That His Justice Cannot Sleep Forever.

In Every Government On Earth Is Some Trace Of Human Weakness, Some Germ Of Corruption And Degeneracy, Which Cunning Will Discover, And Wickedness Insensibly Open, Cultivate And Improve.

The Bloom Of Monticello Is Chilled By My Solitude.

I Am Sorry They Began Their Deliberations By So Abominable A Precedent As That Of Tying Up The Tongues Of Their Members. Nothing Can Justify This Example But The Innocence Of Their Intentions And Ignorance Of The Value Of Public Discussions. I Have No Doubt That All Their Other Measures Will Be Good And Wise. It Is Really An Assembly Of Demigods.

This Formidable Censor Of The Public Functionaries [the Press], By Arraigning Them At The Tribunal Of Public Opinion, Produces Reform Peaceably, Which Must Otherwise Be Done By Revolution. It Is Also The Best Instrument For Enlightening The Mind Of Man And Improving Him As A Rational, Moral, And Social Being.

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

If The Wise Be The Happy Man... He Must Be Virtuous Too; For, Without Virtue, Happiness Cannot Be. This Then Is The True Scope Of All Academical Emulation.

To Instruct The Mass Of Our Citizens In These, Their Rights, Interests And Duties, As Men And Citizens...this Brings Us To The Point At Which Are To Commence The Higher Branches Of Education . . . . To Develop The Reasoning Faculties Of Our Youth, Enlarge Their Minds, Cultivate Their Morals, And Instill Into Them The Precepts Of Virtue And Order.

Experience Hath Shewn, That Even Under The Best Forms Of Government Those Entrusted With Power Have, In Time, And By Slow Operations, Perverted It Into Tyranny.

Democracies Have

‎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.

That One Hundred And Fifty Lawyers Should Do Business Together Ought Not To Be Expected.

May I Never Get Too Busy In My Own Affairs That I Fail To Respond To The Needs Of Others With Kindness And Compassion.

To Draw Around The Whole Nation The Strength Of The General Government As A Barrier Against Foreign Foes... Is [one Of The] Functions Of The General Government On Which [our Citizens] Have A Right To Call.

The Variety Of Opinions Leads To Questions. Questions Lead To Truth.

I Consider Ethics, As Well As Religion, As Supplements To Law In The Government Of Man.

Well Aware That The Opinions And Belief Of Men Depend Not On Their Own Will, But Follow Involuntarily The Evidence Proposed To Their Minds; That Almighty God Hath Created The Mind Free, And Manifested His Supreme Will That Free It Shall Remain By Making It Altogether Insusceptible Of Restraint; That All Attempts To Influence It By Temporal Punishments, Or Burthens, Or By Civil Incapacitations, Tend Only To Beget Habits Of Hypocrisy And Meanness, And Are A Departure From The Plan Of The Holy Author Of Our Religion.

The Tumults In America I Expected Would Have Produced In Europe An Unfavorable Opinion Of Our Political State. But It Has Not. On The Contrary, The Small Effect Of These Tumults Seems To Have Given More Confidence In The Firmness Of Our Governments. The Interposition Of The People Themselves On The Side Of Government Has Had A Great Effect On The Opinion Here In Europe.

We Have Solved, By Fair Experiment, The Great And Interesting Question Whether Freedom Of Religion Is Compatible With Order In Government And Obedience To The Laws. And We Have Experienced The Quiet As Well As The Comfort Which Results From Leaving Every One To Profess Freely And Openly Those Principles Of Religion Which Are The Inductions Of His Own Reason And The Serious Convictions Of His Own Inquiries.

Whenever The People Are Well-informed, They Can Be Trusted With Their Own Government.

Each Generation Has A Right To Choose For Itself The Form Of Government It Believes Most Promotive Of Its Happiness.

I Would Observe To You That What Is Called Style In Writing Or Speaking Is Formed Very Early In Life While The Imagination Is Warm, And Impressions Are Permanent.

I Am Myself An Empiric In Natural Philosophy, Suffering My Faith To Go No Further Than My Facts. I Am Pleased, However, To See The Efforts Of Hypothetical Speculation, Because By The Collisions Of Different Hypotheses, Truth May Be Elicited And Science Advanced In The End.

Let Those Flatter, Who Fear: It Is Not An American Art. To Give Praise Where It Is Not Due, Might Be Well From The Venal, But Would Ill Beseem Those Who Are Asserting The Rights Of Human Nature.

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.

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.

Our Bills Shall Not Be Killed.

Yet By Such Worthless Beings Is A Great Nation To Be Governed And Even Made To Deify Their Old King Because He Is Only A Fool And A Maniac, And To Forgive And Forget His Having Lost To Them A Great And Flourishing Empire.

Forgive And Forget

The Tree Of Liberty Must Be Refreshed From Time To Time With The Blood Of Patriots And Tyrants.

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.

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.

We Have No Right To Prejudice Another In His Civil Enjoyments Because He Is Of Another Church.

Religious Freedom

Every Day Is Lost In Which We Do Not Learn Something Useful. Man Has No Nobler Or More Valuable Possession Than Time.

Difference Of Opinion Is Advantageous In Religion. The Several Sects Perform The Office Of A Censor - Over Each Other.

The Love Of Justice And The Love Of Country Plead Equally The Cause Of These People, And It Is A Moral Reproach To Us That They Should Have Pleaded It So Long In Vain.

The Remaining Revenue On The Consumption Of Foreign Luxuries To Domestic Comforts, Being Collected On Our Seaboard And Frontiers Only, And Incorporated With The Transactions Of Our Mercantile Citizens, It May Be The Pleasure And The Pride Of An American To Ask, What Farmer, What Merchant, What Laborer Ever Sees A Tax Gatherer Of The United States?

I Have Often Thought That Nothing Would Do More Extensive Good At Small Expense Than The Establishment Of A Small Circulating Library In Every County, To Consist Of A Few Well-chosen Books, To Be Lent To The People Of The Country Under Regulations As Would Secure Their Safe Return In Due Time.

There Are Two Subjects, Indeed, Which I Shall Claim A Right To Further As Long As I Breathe: The Public Education, And The Sub-division Of Counties Into Wards. I Consider The Continuance Of Republican Government As Absolutely Hanging On These Two Hooks.

When The Representative Body Have Lost The Confidence Of Their Constituents, When They Have Notoriously Made Sale Of Their Most Valuable Rights, When They Have Assumed To Themselves Powers Which The People Never Put Into Their Hands, Then Indeed Their Continuing In Office Becomes Dangerous To The State

To Take From One Because It Is Thought That His Own Industry And That Of His Father's Has Acquired Too Much, In Order To Spare To Others, Who, Or Whose Fathers Have Not Exercised Equal Industry And Skill, Is To Violate Arbitrarily The First Principle Of Association-the Guarantee To Every One Of A Free Exercise Of His Industry And The Fruits Acquired By It.

We Mutually Pledge To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes, And Our Sacred Honour.

Unalienable Rights

Inalienable Rights

In A World Which Furnishes So Many Employments Which Are Useful, And So Many Which Are Amusing, It Is Our Own Fault If We Ever Know What Ennui [boredom] Is, Or If We Are Ever Driven To The Miserable Resource Of Gaming, Which Corrupts Our Dispositions, And Teaches Us A Habit Of Hostility Against All Mankind.

Instead Of An Aristocracy Of Wealth, Of More Harm And Danger Than Benefit To Society, To Make An Opening For The Aristocracy Of Virtue And Talent, Which Nature Has Wisely Provided For The Direction Of The Interests Of Society And Scattered With Equal Hand Through All Its Conditions, Was Deemed Essential To A Well-ordered Republic.

Slavery Is An Abomination And Must Be Loudly Proclaimed As Such, But I Own That I Nor Any Other Man Has Any Immediate Solution To The Problem.

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

The Great Cause Which Divides Our Countries Is Not To Be Decided By Individual Animosities. The Harmony Of Private Societies Cannot Weaken National Efforts.

I Prefer Dangerous Freedom Over Peaceful Slavery.

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.

When Right, I Shall Often Be Thought Wrong By Those Whose Positions Will Not Command A View Of The Whole Ground.

A Democratic Society Depends Upon An Informed And Educated Citizenry.

I Will Now Add What I Do Not Like. First, The Omission Of A Bill Of Rights Providing Clearly And Without The Aid Of Sophisms For Freedom Of Religion, Freedom Of The Press, Protection Against Standing Armies, Restriction Against Monopolies, The Eternal And Unremitting Force Of The Habeas Corpus Laws, And Trials By Jury In All Matters Of Fact Triable By The Laws Of The Land And Not By The Law Of Nations.

Public Offices Were Not Made For Private Convenience.

By Nature's Law, Man Is At Peace With Man Till Some Aggression Is Committed, Which, By The Same Law, Authorizes One To Destroy Another As His Enemy.

We Sometimes From Dreams Pick Up Some Hint Worth Improving By Reflection.

The Selfish Spirit Of Commerce, Which Knows No Country, And Feels No Passion Or Principle But That Of Gain.

The Hole And The Patch Should Be Commensurate.

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

Although We Are Free By The Law, We Are Not So In Practice.

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.

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.

I Think Myself That We Have More Machinery Of Government Than Is Necessary, Too Many Parasites Living On The Labor Of The Industrious. Government Big Enough To Supply Everything You Need Is Big Enough To Take Everything You Have ... The Course Of History Shows That As A Government Grows, Liberty Decreases. The Two Enemies Of The People Are Criminals And Government, So Let Us Tie The Second Down With The Chains Of The Constitution So The Second Will Not Become The Legalized Version Of The First.

The Same Political Parties Which Now Agitiate The Us Have Existed Through All Time. And In Fact The Terms Of Whig And Tory Belong To Natural As Well As To Civil History. They Denote The Temper And Constitution And Mind Of Different Individuals.

The Metaphysical Insanities Of Athanasius, Of Loyola, And Of Calvin, Are, To My Understanding, Mere Lapses Into Polytheism, Differing From Paganism Only By Being More Unintelligible.

Idleness Begets Ennui, Ennui The Hypochondriac, And That A Diseased Body. No Laborious Person Was Ever Yet Hysterical.

Up Until The Late Unpleasantness Of The Civil War, Then, The Right Of Secession Was More Or Less Taken For Granted In Many Quarters, And There Has Never Been Any Amendment Or Even A Supreme Court Decision Saying It's Improper. - Samual Francis, Secession May Be Legal But Not Expedient, Conservative Chronicles If There Be Any Among Us Who Wish To Dissolve The Union Or To Change Its Republican Form, Let Them Stand Undisturbed, As Monuments Of The Safety With Which Error Of Opinion May Be Tolerated Where Reason Is Left Free To Combat It.

[emigrants] Will Bring With Them The Principles Of The Governments They Leave, Imbibed In Their Early Youth; Or, If Able To Throw Off, It Will Be In Exchange For An Unbounded Licentiousness, Passing, As Is Usual, From One Extreme To Another. It Would Be A Miracle Were They To Stop Precisely At The Point Of Temperate Liberty.

Unmerited Abuse Wounds, While Unmerited Praise Has Not The Power To Heal.

Nothing Can Now Be Believed Which Is Seen In A Newspaper. Truth Itself Becomes Suspicious By Being Put Into That Polluted Vehicle. The Real Extent Of This State Of Misinformation Is Known Only To Those Who Are In Situations To Confront Facts Within Their Knowledge With The Lies Of The Day.

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.

To Take A Single Step Beyond The Boundaries Specially Drawn Around The Powers Of Congress Is To Take Possession Of A Boundless Field Of Power, No Longer Susceptible To Definition.

Our Minds Were Circumscribed Within Narrow Limits By An Habitual Belief That It Was Our Duty To Be Subordinate To The Mother Country.

Everyone Must Act According To The Dictates Of His Own Reason.

The Mobs Of The Great Cities Add Just So Much To The Support Of Pure Government As Sores Do To The Strength Of The Human Body. It Is The Manners And Spirit Of A People Which Preserve A Republic In Vigor. A Degeneracy In These Is A Canker Which Soon Eats To The Heart Of Its Laws And Constitution.

The Same Prudence Which In Private Life Would Forbid Our Paying Our Own Money For Unexplained Projects, Forbids It In The Dispensation Of The Public Moneys.

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.

The Ocean ... Like The Air, Is The Common Birth-right Of Mankind.

To Me... It Appears That There Have Been Differences Of Opinion And Party Differences, From The First Establishment Of Government To The Present Day, And On The Same Question Which Now Divides Our Own Country; That These Will Continue Through All Future Time; That Every One Takes His Side In Favor Of The Many, Or Of The Few, According To His Constitution, And The Circumstances In Which He Is Placed.

...in War, They Will Kill Some Of Us; We Shall Destroy All Of Them

While The Farmer Holds The Title To The Land, Actually, It Belongs To All The People Because Civilization Itself Rests Upon The Soil.

One War, Such As That Of Our Revolution, Is Enough For One Life.

My Views And Feelings (are) In Favor Of The Abolition Of War-and I Hope It Is Practicable, By Improving The Mind And Morals Of Society, To Lessen The Disposition To War; But Of Its Abolition I Despair.

Heliotrope. To Be Sowed In The Spring. A Delicious Flower, But I Suspect It Must Be Planted In Boxes And Kept In The House In The Winter. The Smell Rewards The Care.

I Concur With You Strictly In Your Opinion Of The Comparative Merits Of Atheism And Demonism, And Really See Nothing But The Latter In The Being Worshipped By Many Who Think Themselves Christians.

The Art Of Life Is The Art Of Avoiding Pain; And He Is The Best Pilot, Who Steers Clearest Of The Rocks And Shoals With Which It Is Beset.

I Leave To Others The Sublime Delights Of Riding In The Storm, Better Pleased With Sound Sleep & A Warmer Berth Below It Encircled, With The Society Of Neighbors, Friends & Fellow Laborers Of The Earth Rather Than With Spies & Sycophants ... I Have No Ambition To Govern Men. It Is A Painful And Thankless Office.

He Who Permits Himself To Tell A Lie Once, Finds It Much Easier To Do It A Second And Third Time, Till At Length It Becomes Habitual; He Tells Lies Without Attending To It, And Truths Without The World's Believing Him. This Falsehood Of The Tongue Leads To That Of The Heart, And In Time Depraves All Its Good Dispositions.

The Constitution Of The United States Is The Result Of The Collected Wisdom Of Our Country.

Where Strictness Of Grammar Does Not Weaken Expression, It Should Be Attended To. . . . But Where, By Small Grammatical Negligences, The Energy Of An Idea Is Condensed, Or A Word Stands For A Sentence, I Hold Grammatical Rigor In Contempt.

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

Resort Is Had To Ridicule Only When Reason Is Against Us.

The Olive Tree Is Surely The Richest Gift Of Heaven. I Can Scarcely Expect Bread.

Liberty Is The Great Parent Of Science And Of Virtue; And A Nation Will Be Great In Both In Proportion As It Is Free.

In Europe The Object Is To Make The Most Of Their Land, Labour Being Abundant: Here It Is To Make The Most Of Our Labour, Land Being Abundant.

The Legitimate Powers Of Government Extend To Such Acts Only As Are Injurious To Others.

Exercise And Application Produce Order In Our Affairs, Health Of Body, Cheerfulness Of Mind, And These Make Us Precious To Our Friends

Without Health There Is No Happiness. An Attention To Health, Then, Should Take The Place Of Every Other Object.

The Wisdom Of Our Ages And The Blood Of Our Heroes Has Been Devoted To The Attainment Of Trial By Jury. It Should Be The Creed Of Our Political Faith.

Now I Will Avow, That I Then Believed And Now Believe That Those General Principles Of Christianity Are As Eternal And Immutable As The Existence And Attributes Of God; And That Those Principles Of Liberty Are As Unalterable As Human Nature And Our Terrestrial, Mundane System.

The Provisions We Have Made [for Our Government] Are Such As Please Ourselves; They Answer The Substantial Purposes Of Government And Of Justice, And Other Purposes Than These Should Not Be Answered.

I Believe The States Can Best Govern Our Home Concerns, And The General Government Our Foreign Ones.

What Country Before Ever Existed A Century And A Half Without A Rebellion? And What Country Can Preserve Its Liberties If Their Rulers Are Not Warned From Time To Time That Their People Preserve The Spirit Of Resistance? Let Them Take Arms. The Remedy Is To Set Them Right As To Facts, Pardon And Pacify Them. What Signify A Few Lives Lost In A Century Or Two? The Tree Of Liberty Must Be Refreshed From Time To Time With The Blood Of Patriots And Tyrants. It Is Its Natural Manure.

The Wise Know Too Well Their Weakness To Assume Infallibility; And He Who Knows Most Knows Best How Little He Knows.

The Christian Priesthood, Finding The Doctrines Of Christ Leveled To Every Understanding, And Too Plain To Need Explanation, Saw, In The Mysticism Of Plato, Materials With Which They Might Build Up An Artificial System Which Might, From It's Indistinctness, Admit Everlasting Controversy, Give Employment For Their Order, And Introduce It To Profit, Power And Pre-eminence.

If Virtuous, The Government Need Not Fear The Fair Operation Of Attack And Defense. Nature Has Given To Man No Other Means Of Sifting The Truth, Either In Religion, Law, Or Politics.

All... Natural Rights May Be Abridged Or Modified In [their] Exercise By Law.

Our Ancestors ... Were Laborers, Not Lawyers.

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-evident, That All Men Are Created Equal, That They Are Endowed By Their Creator With Certain Inalienable Rights, Among These Are Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness, That To Secure These Rights Governments Are Instituted Among Men. We...solemnly Publish And Declare, That These Colonies Are And Of A Right Ought To Be Free And Independent States...and For The Support Of This Declaration, With A Firm Reliance On The Protection Of Divine Providence, We Mutually Pledge Our Lives, Our Fortunes, And Our Sacred Honour.

Pursuit Of Happiness

It Is (our) Duty . . . To Pay Especial Attention To The Principles Of Government Which Shall Be Inculcated Therein (at The University), And To Provide That None Shall Be Inculcated Which Are Incompatible With Those On Which The Constitutions Of This State, And Of The United States Were Genuinely Based, In The Common Opinion; And For This Purpose It May Be Necessary To Point Out Specially Where These Principles Are To Be Found Legitimately Developed.

[a] Spirit Of Justice And Friendly Accomodation...is Our Duty And Our Interest To Cultivate With All Nations.

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

The Sun Of Her [great Britain] Glory Is Fast Descending To The Horizon. Her Philosophy Has Crossed The Channel, Her Freedom The Atlantic, And Herself Seems Passing To That Awful Dissolution, Whose Issue Is Not Given Human Foresight To Scan.

What Has Destroyed Liberty And The Rights Of Man In Every Government Which Has Ever Existed Under The Sun? The Generalizing And Concentrating All Cares And Power Into One Body, No Matter Whether Of The Autocrats Of Russia Or France, Or Of The Aristocrats Of A Venetian Senate.

Difference Of Opinion Is Helpful In Religion.

A System Of General Instruction, Which Shall Reach Every Description Of Our Citizens, From The Richest To The Poorest, As It Was The Earliest, So Will It Be The Latest, Of All The Public Concerns In Which I Shall Permit Myself To Take An Interest.

The Merchant Has No Country .

A Coward Is Much More Exposed To Quarrels Than A Man Of Spirit.

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.

While Learning The Language In France A Young Man's Morals, Health And Fortune Are More Irresistibly Endangered Than In Any Country Of The Universe.

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."

The Functionaries Of Every Government Have Propensities To Command At Will The Liberty And Property Of Their Constituents.

If The Obstacles Of Bigotry And Priestcraft Can Be Surmounted, We May Hope That Common Sense Will Suffice To Do Everything Else.

Error Is To Be Pitied And Pardoned: It Is The Weakness Of Human Nature. But Vice Is A Foul Blemish, Not Pardonable In Any Character.

Revenue On The Consumption Of Foreign Articles Is Paid Cheerfully By Those Who Can Afford To Add Foreign Luxuries To Domestic Comforts.

I Shall Rejoin Myself To My Native Country, With New Attachments, And With Exaggerated Esteem For Its Advantages; For Though There Is Less Wealth There, There Is More Freedom, More Ease, And Less Misery.

In The Constitution Of Spain As Proposed By The Late Cortes, There Was A Principle Entirely New To Me:... That No Person Born After That Day Should Ever Acquire The Rights Of Citizenship Until He Could Read And Write. It Is Impossible Sufficiently To Estimate The Wisdom Of This Provision. Of All Those Which Have Been Thought Of For Securing Fidelity In The Administration Of The Government, Constant Reliance To The Principles Of The Constitution, And Progressive Amendments With The Progressive Advances Of The Human Mind Or Changes In Human Affairs, It Is The Most Effectual.

My Opinion Is That There Would Never Have Been An Infidel, If There Had Never Been A Priest. The Artificial Structures They Have Built On The Purest Of All Moral Systems, For The Purpose Of Deriving From It Pence And Power, Revolts Those Who Think For Themselves, And Who Read In That System Only What Is Really There.

I Join Cordially In Admiring And Revering The Constitution Of The United States, The Result Of The Collected Wisdom Of Our Country. That Wisdom Has Committed To Us The Important Task Of Proving By Example That A Government, If Organized In All Its Parts On The Representative Principle Unadulterated By The Infusion Of Spurious Elements, If Founded, Not In The Fears & Follies Of Man, But On His Reason, On His Sense Of Right, On The Predominance Of The Social Over His Dissocial Passions, May Be So Free As To Restrain Him In No Moral Right, And So Firm As To Protect Him From Every Moral Wrong.

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

A Walk About Paris Will Provide Lessons In History, Beauty, And In The Point Of Life.

Nothing Is So Engaging As The Little Domestic Cares Into Which You Appear To Be Entering, And As To Reading It Is Useful For Onlyfilling Up The Chinks Of More Useful And Healthy Occupations.

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.

An Enemy Generally Says And Believes What He Wishes.

Honesty Is The First Chapter In The Book Of Wisdom. Let It Be Our Endeavor To Merit The Character Of A Just Nation.

Turning, Then, From This Loathsome Combination Of Church And State, And Weeping Over The Follies Of Our Fellow Men, Who Yield Themselves The Willing Dupes And Drudges Of These Mountebanks, I Consider Reformation And Redress As Desperate, And Abandon Them To The Quixotism Of More Enthusiastic Minds.

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

I Am Satisfied, And Sufficiently Occupied With The Things Which Are, Without Tormenting Or Troubling Myself About Those Which May Indeed Be, But Of Which I Have No Evidence.

The Possession Of Facts Is Knowledge; The Use Of Them Is Wisdom.

Under The Law Of Nature, All Men Are Born Free, Every One Comes Into The World With A Right To His Own Person, Which Includes The Liberty Of Moving And Using It At His Own Will. This Is What Is Called Personal Liberty, And Is Given Him By The Author

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

The Parent Storms, The Child Looks On, Catches The Lineaments Of Wrath, Puts On The Same Airs In The Circle Of Smaller Slaves, Gives A Loose To The Worst Of Passions, And Thus Nursed, Educated And Daily Exercised In Tyranny, Cannot But Be Stamped By It With Odious Peculiarities.

I Agree With You That It Is The Duty Of Every Good Citizen To Use All The Opportunities, Which Occur To Him, For Preserving Documents Relating To The History Of Our Country.

Fix Reason Firmly In Her Seat, And Call On Her Tribunal For Every Fact, Every Opinion. Question With Boldness Even The Existence Of A God

Every Honest Man Will Suppose Honest Acts To Flow From Honest Principles, And The Rogues May Rail Without Intermission.

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.

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

Industry, Commerce And Security Are The Surest Roads To The Happiness And Prosperity Of People.

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.

The Worst Day In A Man's Life Is When He Sits Down And Begins Thinking About How He Can Get Something For Nothing.

When I Contemplate The Immense Advances In Science And Discoveries In The Arts Which Have Been Made Within The Period Of My Life, I Look Forward With Confidence To Equal Advances By The Present Generation, And Have No Doubt They Will Consequently Be As Much Wiser Than We Have Been As We Than Our Fathers Were, And They Than The Burners Of Witches.

We Often Repent Of What We Have Said, But Never, Never, Of That Which We Have Not.

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.

We Must Use A Good Deal Of Economy In Our Wood, Never Cutting Down New, Where We Can Make The Old Do.

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.

Bigotry Is The Disease Of Ignorance.

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

I Am For A Government Rigorously Frugal & Simple, Applying All The Possible Savings Of The Public Revenue To The Discharge Of The National Debt; And Not For A Multiplication Of Officers & Salaries Merely To Make Partisans, & For Increasing, By Every Device, The Public Debt, On The Principle Of Its Being A Public Blessing.

I Have Lived Temperately....i Double The Doctor's Recommendation Of A Glass And A Half Wine Each Day And Even Treble It With A Friend.

We Are The Friends Of Liberty Everywhere, But The Guarrantors Of Only Our Own.

I Wish To See This Beverage Become Common Instead Of The Whiskey Which Kills Sone-third Of Our Citizens And Ruins Their Families.

Perfect Happiness, I Believe, Was Never Intended By The Deity To Be The Lot Of One Of His Creatures In This World; But That He Has Very Much Put In Our Power The Nearness Of Our Approaches To It Is What I Have Steadfastly Believed.

I Deny The Power Of The General Government To Making Paper Money, Or Anything Else A Legal Tender.

Debt And Revolution Are Inseparable As Cause And Effect.

The Protection Of Our Citizens, The Spirit And Honor Of Our Country, Require That Force Should Be Interposed To A Certain Degree.

No Man Has Done Everything He Can Who Has Done Only His Best.

May It Be To The World... To Assume The Blessings And Security Of Self-government.

If You Are Obliged To Neglect Any Thing, Let It Be Your Chemistry. It Is The Least Useful And The Least Amusing To A Country Gentleman Of All The Ordinary Branches Of Science.

I Deem It The Duty Of Every Man To Devote A Certain Portion Of His Income For Charitable Purposes; And That It Is His Further Duty To See It So Applied And To Do The Most Good For Which It Is Capable.

Whiskey Claims To Itself Alone The Exclusive Office Of Sot-making.

Everything Yields To Diligence.

Motivational Work

It Is To Secure Our Rights That We Resort To Government At All.

There Is No King, Who, With Sufficient Force, Is Not Always Ready To Make Himself Absolute.

My Affections Were First For My Own Country, Then, Generally, For All Mankind

It Has Also Been A Great Solace To Me, To Believe That You Are Engaged In Vindicating To Posterity The Course We Have Pursued For Preserving To Them, In All Their Purity, The Blessings Of Self-government, Which We Had Assisted Too In Acquiring For Them. If Ever The Earth Has Beheld A System Of Administration Conducted With A Single And Steadfast Eye To The General Interest And Happiness Of Those Committed To It, One Which, Protected By Truth, Can Never Know Reproach, It Is That To Which Our Lives Have Been Devoted.

Were I To Be The Founder Of A New Sect, I Would Call Them Apiarians, And, After The Example Of The Bee, Advise Them To Extract The Honey Of Every Sect. My Fundamental Principle Would Be ... That We Are To Be Saved By Our Good Works Which Are Within Our Power, And Not By Our Faith Which Is Not Within Our Power.

It Is Not Too Soon To Provide By Every Possible Means That As Few As Possible Shall Be Without A Little Portion Of Land. The Small Landholders Are The Most Precious Part Of A State.

I Steer My Bark With Hope In The Head, Leaving Fear Astern. My Hopes Indeed Sometimes Fail, But Not Oftener Than The Forebodings Of The Gloomy.

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.

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.

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?

Private Enterprise Manages So Much Better All The Concerns To Which It Is Equal.

If You Have To Eat Crow, Eat It While It's Young And Tender.

It Is Not By The Consolidation Or Concentration Of Powers But By Their Distribution That Good Government Is Effected.

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.

Light And Liberty Go Together.

Politics, Like Religion, Hold Up The Torches Of Martyrdom To The Reformers Of Error.

Men Of High Learning And Abilities Are Few In Every Country; And By Taking In Those Who Are Not So, The Able Part Of The Body Have Their Hands Tied By The Unable.

All The Capital Employed In Paper Speculation Is Barren And Useless, Producing, Like That On A Gaming Table, No Accession To Itself, And Is Withdrawn From Commerce And Agriculture Where It Would Have Produced Addition To The Common Mass It Nourishes In Our Citizens Habits Of Vice And Idleness Instead Of Industry And Morality It Has Furnished Effectual Means Of Corrupting Such A Portion Of The Legislature As Turns The Balance Between The Honest Voters Whichever Way It Is Directed.

You Have Lived Longer Than I Have And Perhaps May Have Formed A Different Judgment On Better Grounds; But My Observations Do Not Enable Me To Say I Think Integrity The Characteristic Of Wealth. In General I Believe The Decisions Of The People, In A Body, Will Be More Honest And More Disinterested Than Those Of Wealthy Men.

Let It Be Signified To Me Through Any Channelthat The Possession Of The Floridas Would Be Desirable To The United States, Andin Sixty Days It Will Be Accomplished. ...penned In The Language Of Truth, And Divested Of Those Expressions Of Servility Which Would Persuade His Majesty That We Are Asking Favors And Not Rights.

We See The Wisdom Of Solon's Remark, That No More Good Must Be Attempted Than The Nation Can Bear.

I Prefer The Tumult Of Liberty To The Quiet Of Servitude

It Is Surely Time For Men To Think For Themselves, And To Throw Off The Authority Of Names So Artificially Magnified.

I Have Always Said That A Studious Perusal Of The Sacred Volume Will Make Better Citizens, Better Fathers, And Better Husbands.

I Believe That Every Human Mind Feels Pleasure In Doing Good To Another.

On The Dogmas Of Religion, As Distinguished From Moral Principles, All Mankind, From The Beginning Of The World To This Day, Have Been Quarrelling, Fighting, Burning And Torturing One Another, For Abstractions Unintelligible To Themselves And To All Others, And Absolutely Beyond The Comprehension Of The Human Mind.

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