The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when...

Religions are all alike — founded on fables and mythologies

The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.

(Academics) commit their pupils to the theatre of the world, with just taste enough of learning to be alienated from industrial pursuits, and not enough to do service in the ranks of science

The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.

We rarely repent of having eaten too little.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof...

Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in...

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of...

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired]This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our...

No defender of slavery, I concede that it has its benevolent aspects in lifting the Negro from savagery and helping prepare him for that eventual freedom which is surely written in the Book of Fate

A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that...

Information is the currency of democracy.

The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

I served with General Washington in the Legislature of Virginia… and… with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.

Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility

Believing that happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and...

It is neither wealth nor splendor? but tranquillity and occupation which givehappiness.