Quote collection
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"My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein."
"Unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties"
"[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists . . . an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness."
"Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will."
"A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove."
"Always speak the truth."
"I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love."
"I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world."
"It is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws."
"The wishes of the people, seldom founded in deep disquisitions, or resulting from other reasonings than their present feelings, may not entirely accord with our true policy and interest. If they do not, to observe a proper line of conduct for promoting the one, and avoiding offence to the other, will be a work of great difficulty."
"An aching head and trembling limbs, which are the inevitable effects of drinking, disincline the hands from work."
"What was done with the seed saved from the India Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sewn again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp."
"All I am I owe to my mother."
"But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with."
"Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths . . . ?"
"The Stamp Act imposed on the colonies by the Parliament of Great Britain is an ill-judged measure. Parliament has no right to put its hands into our pockets without our consent."
"Let me ask you, sir, when is the time for brave men to exert themselves in the cause of liberty and their country, if this is not?"
"Let me now warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another. In governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged."
"May the same wonderworking Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors and planted them in the promised land, whose Providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah."
"Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful, and most noble employment of man"