 It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong. |
| That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part. |
| It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read. |
| Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. |
| The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. |
| When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property. |
| Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty. |
| We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest. |
| Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. |
| If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? |
| Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. |
| It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness. |
| The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. |
| The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave. |
| Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. |
| All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. |
| There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. |
| I cannot live without books. |
| Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do. |
| Power is not alluring to pure minds. |
