Miscellaneous

Some quotes to remember this fine man:

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

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

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

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.

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

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

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

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

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

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

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

Never spend your money before you have earned it.