Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It is therefore wish'd that all commerce were as free between all the nations of the world as it is between the several counties of England.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.
Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men.
Grief for a dead Wife, and a troublesome Guest, Continues to the threshold, and there is at rest; But I mean such wives as are none of the best
Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues. Be active in business, that temptation may miss her aim; the bird that sits is easily shot.
The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.
It behooves every American to encourage home manufactures, that our oppressors may feel through their pockets the effects of their blind folly.
A habit of labor in the people is as essential to the health and rigor of their minds and bodies as it is conducive to the welfare of the state.
In other men we faults can spy,/ And blame the mote that dims their eye;/ Each little speck and blemish find;/ To our own stronger errors blind.
Taxes are indeed very heavy - We are taxed twice as much by our Idleness. Three times as much by our Pride. And four times as much by our Folly.
I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution.
CREDIT supposes specific and permanent funds for the punctual payment of interest, with a moral certainty of a final redemption of the principal.
The multitude . . . have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them. . . . It is not safe to trust to the virtue of any people.
Nothing is more natural to men in office, than to look with peculiar deference towards that authority to which they owe their official existence.
Nothing is more important for the public wealth than to form and train youth in wisdom and virtue. Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
Here you would know, and enjoy, what prosperity will way of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years.
Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!
The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.
The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry; because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage.
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
A man is sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.
It is observable that God has often called men to places of dignity and honor when they have been busy in the honest employment of their vocation.
You can't tell anyone anything. You have to teach people for them to remember. Let the person experience what you are teaching and they will learn.
Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Electrical matter differs from common matter in this, that the parts of the latter mutually attract, those of the former mutually repel each other.
Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.
Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter.
Nothing's so apt to undermine your confidence in a product as knowing that the commercial selling it has been approved by the company that makes it.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
By the word simplicity, is not always meant folly or ignorance; but often, pure and upright Nature, free from artifice, craft or deceitful ornament.
I have no private interest in the reception of my inventions by the world, having never made, nor proposed to make, the least profit by any of them.
It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.
I cannot however help repeating Piety, because I think it indispensible. Religion in a Family is at once its brightest Ornament & its best Security.
Indeed, when religious people quarrel about religion, or hungry people quarrel about victuals, it looks as if they had not much of either among them.
A single man has not nearly the value he would have in a state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors.
That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved.
No person that has enjoyed the sweets of liberty can be insensible of its infinite value, or can reflect on its reverse without horror and detestation
Everybody's human-everybody makes mistakes. If you laugh it off and keep going and try to give it your best the next time around, people respect that.
He that drinks fast, pays slow. Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. There can't be good living where there is not good drinking.
It requires time to bring honest Men to think & determine alike even in important Matters. Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.
The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.