No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
From Thomas Jefferson
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
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