Quote collection
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"If thinking men would have the courage to think for themselves, and to speak what they think, it would be found they do not differ in religious opinions as much as is supposed."
"Money, not morality, constitutes the principle of commercial nations."
"Health is value greater than studying."
"While prudence will endeavor to avoid this issue of war, bravery will prepare to meet it."
"I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and remaining a mere monument of the times which are past."
"Perseverance in object, though not by the most direct way, is often more laudable than perpetual changes, as often as the object shifts light."
"Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise, and the weather shall be little regarded. If the body is feeble, the mind will not be strong."
"The mass of our citizens may be divided into two classes -- the laboring and the learned. The laboring will need the first grade of education to qualify them for their pursuits and duties; the learned will need it as a foundation for further acquirements."
"Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error."
"Printers shall be liable to legal prosecution for printing and publishing false facts injurious to the party prosecuting: but they shall be under no other restraint."
"Bind them down by the chains of the Constitution where they can do no mischief."
"Yet by such worthless beings is a great nation to be governed and even made to deify their old king because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his having lost to them a great and flourishing empire."
"To seek out the best [persons to serve in the government] though the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with ther purest motives, is something incorrect....No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place."
"I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts."
"The more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained."
"There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America."
"While learning the language in France a young man's morals, health and fortune are more irresistibly endangered than in any country of the universe."
"I do not pretend that language is science. It isan instrument for the attainment of science."
"The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts."
"You have never by a word or a deed given me one moment's uneasiness; on the contrary I have felt perpetual gratitude to heaven forhaving given me, in you, a source of so much pure and unmixed happiness."