"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state"
"Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it"
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day"
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty"
"Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do"
"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you"
"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it"
"Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other"
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground"
"The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead"
"The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses"
"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"
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government"
"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave"
"There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world"
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical"
"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on"
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty"
"When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred"
"Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching"
"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government"
"We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed"
"I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office"
"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors"
"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security"
"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today"
"Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival"
"He who knows best knows how little he knows"
"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?"
"The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism"
"The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world"
"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God"
"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"
"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind"
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual"
"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 blind-folded fear"
"No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place"
"Never spend your money before you have earned it"
"It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read"
"In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty"
"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend"
"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"
"Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted"
"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden"
"No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it"
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock"
"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory"
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question"
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none"
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself"
