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

“It is the duty of every American citizen to take part in a vigorous debate on the issues of the day.”

“It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.”

“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.”

“Kejujuran merupakan suatu kebijakan dalam bisnis, yang tidak perlu diubah atau disesuaikan dengan waktu.” 

“When describing the University of Virginia: Here, We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”

“I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.”

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...entangling alliances with none”

“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”

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

“[A] lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.”

“...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.”