“Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.”

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

“Everything yields to diligence.”

“Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.”

“Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.”

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

“As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”

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

“I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.”

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

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

“Delay is preferable to error.”

“It is my rule never to take a side in any part in the quarrels of others, nor to inquire into them. I generally presume them to flow from the indulgence of too much passion on both sides, & always find that each party thinks all the wrong was in his adversary. These bickerings, which are always useless, embitter human life more than any other cause…”

“Half a loaf is better than no bread.”

“A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.”

“Never spend your money before you have it.”

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

“Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.”

“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.”

“Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.”

“With your talents and industry, with science, and that steadfast honesty, which eternally pursues right, regardless of consequences, you may promise yourself everything but health, without which there is no happiness.”

“Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.”

“Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the general progress of the human mind.”

“But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.”

“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”

“No instance exists of a person’s writing two languages perfectly.”

“That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.”

“Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.”

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.”

“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”

“But this momentous question. Like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.”

“Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I have steadfastly believed.”

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

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

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

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

“If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden…But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”

“Advertisements… contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”

“May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.”

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

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.”

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.”

“Walking is the very best exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.”

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”

“If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.”

“Was the government to prescribe us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”

“There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”