“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

“...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.”

“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”

“Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.”

“no people can be both ignorant and free.”

“Freedom, the first-born of science.”

“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.”

“The dead should not rule the living.”

“The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave. ”

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”

“The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.”

“Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.”

“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money”

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