 The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. |
| How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. |
| 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. |
| There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me. |
| 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. |
| Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? |
| No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will. |
| Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. |
| 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. Topics: Friendship |
| I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. |
| A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. |
| Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor. |
| Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. |
| No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. |
| So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done. |
| In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. |
| War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. |
| The most successful war seldom pays for its losses. |
| Information is the currency of democracy. |
| I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. |
