“While the art of printing is left to us science can never be retrograde; what is once acquired of real knowledge can never be lost.”

“...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 many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”

“Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.”

“I hope they pardoned them. The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that i wish it to be always kept alive....I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

“Of all machines, the human heart is the most complicated and inexplicable.”

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

“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.”

“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.”

“Take things always by their smooth handle.”

“The pretense that the workings of the mind, like the actions of the body, are subject to the control of laws, does not seem sufficiently demolished. ... The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.”

“The rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.”

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. --”