The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring...

We never repent of having eaten too little.

I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. The issuing powers should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

No man will ever bring out of the presidency the reputation which carries him into it

A republican government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its momentum becomes irresistible

Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

I have not observed men’s honesty to increase with their riches.

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves...

Let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it

Victory and defeat are each of the same price.

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.

No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the...

no people can be both ignorant and free.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to = remain silent.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion?...

I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.

The most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements

We must do our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies

We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the...

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another...

One man with courage is a majority.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy...

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

But friendship is precious, not only in shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine

I never told my religion nor scrutinize that of another. I never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another’s creed. I have judged of others’ religion by their lives…

Traveling makes a man wiser, but less happy.

I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character

Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary. It produces great praise to...

The hole and the patch should be commensurate

This is the fourth?

…legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of...

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

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...

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.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

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.