The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
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.
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
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.
Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
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.
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
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.
It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
One man with courage is a majority.
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.
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
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.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
