While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.
Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.
My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.
