"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."

"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."

"Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste."

"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 incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

"All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world."

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."

"I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work."

"Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism."

"I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,...[One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government."

"...vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry."

"...We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans."

"Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting."

"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."

"I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master."

"I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary."

"All authority belongs to the people."

"Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. Tosay that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is tosay they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels,no soul. I cannot reason otherwise .. . without plunginginto the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I amsatisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things whichare, without tormenting or troubling myself aboutthose which may indeed be, but of which I have noevidence."

"The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them."

"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you."

"I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us."

"That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves."

"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle."

"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."

"I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it."

"A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be."

"Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us."

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."

"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."

"Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error."

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

"I find that the harder I work , the more luck I seem to have."

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

"Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be."

"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."

"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."

"The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest."

"It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it."

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

"How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!"

"When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property."

"It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good."

"Taste cannot be controlled by law."

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

"The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.--The Fruit Hunters."

"I succeed him no one could replace him."

"Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument."