 I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office. |
| The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. |
| My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. |
| Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast. |
| The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force. |
| Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted. |
| I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. |
| For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. |
| If God is just, I tremble for my country. |
| The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. |
| We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country. |
| Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. |
| My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair. |
| I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. |
| I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. |
| Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government. |
| The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world. |
