Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling; for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. --The Fruit Hunters

The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.

The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.

Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent.

Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.

The genuine and simple religion of Jesus will one day be restored: such as it was preached and practiced by Himself.

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

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.

I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation.

We should talk over the lessons of the day, or lose them in Music, Chess, or the merriments of our family companions.

It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.

It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified.

May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Idleness begets ennui, ennui the hypochondriac, and that a diseased body. No laborious person was ever yet hysterical.

Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.

Music furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life.

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.

Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindred and tongues.

We are completely saddled and bridled, and... the bank is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where it will guide.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.

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

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

Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

Every honest man will suppose honest acts to flow from honest principles, and the rogues may rail without intermission.

The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters.

With nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.

Paper money is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.

The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.

It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation, even of that which has injured us most.

History teaches the young the virtues of freedom. By apprising them of the past it will enable them to judge the future.

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

Man is not made for the State but the State for man and it derives its just powers only from the consent of the governed.

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.

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