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The dead should not rule the living.

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I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything el...more

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The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.

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...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen...more

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...We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans.

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If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few by resignation none.

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

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I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise th...more

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Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

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I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebelli...more

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...vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and sp...more

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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, ...more

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not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms ...more

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The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.(A plaque with this quota...more

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I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.