The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

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.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

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

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

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.

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

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.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

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

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

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

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.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

One man with courage is a majority.

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.

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.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

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.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

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 is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

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.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

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.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

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.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

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.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

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.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

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.

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.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

If God is just, I tremble for my country.