“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”

“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.”

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

“I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.”

“Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep”

“The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.

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

“he repudiated the writings of the Apostle Paul," whom he considered the (first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus”

“...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.”

“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”

“Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace”

“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.”

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”

“I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money, are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.”

“The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.”