I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.
Of all the cankers of human happiness, none corrodes it with so silent, yet so baneful, a tooth, as indolence.
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.
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
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
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.
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
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.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Experience hath shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
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.
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens
Every human has four endowments - self-awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
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.
Không gì có thể ngăn cản người có thái độ tinh thần đúng đạt được mục tiêu của mình; không gì có thể giúp người có thái độ tinh thần sai.
Hạnh phúc lớn lao nhất của ta không phụ thuộc vào điều kiện sống ta được may rủi đặt vào, mà nó luôn luôn là kết quả của việc theo đuổi một cách chính đáng lương tâm trong sạch, sức khỏe tốt, nghề nghiệp, và tự do.
Những ngày ta không học được điều gì hữu ích là những ngày đánh mất. Con người không có tài sản nào quý giá và cao cả hơn thời gian.
Hãy quyết tâm không lười nhác. Không ai sẽ rơi vào cảnh phải phàn nàn mình thiếu thời gian khi mà mình chưa bao giờ đánh mất thời gian. Thật kỳ diệu rằng ta có thể làm được nhiều đến thế nào, nếu ta luôn luôn hành động.
Không gì có thể ngăn cản một người với sự quyết tâm cao độ đạt được giấc mơ của họ; không gì trên thế giới này có thể giúp được một người không có sự quyết tâm.
