Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
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.
So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
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.
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.
Taste cannot be controlled by law.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
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.
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
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.
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 whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Delay is preferable to error.
