“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”

Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.

Kindness, so far as we can return it, is agreeable.

So obscure are the greatest events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source, others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement with posterity.

Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; falsehood by haste and uncertainty.

He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day; But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.

Those in supreme power always suspect and hate their next heir.

When a woman has lost her chastity she will shrink from nothing.

The lust of dominion burns with a flame so fierce as to overpower all other affections of the human breast.

Be assured those will be thy worst enemies, not to whom thou hast done evil, but who have done evil to thee. And those will be thy best friends, not to whom thou hast done good, but who have done good to thee.

To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.

Falsehood avails itself of haste and uncertainty.

This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.

Liberty is given by nature even to mute animals.

Nature gives liberty even to dumb animals.

Valor is the contempt of death and pain.

We are corrupted by good fortune. [Lat., Felicitate corrumpimur.]

The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.

Patriotism has no appeal to us; justice has. Party has no weight with us; principle has.

An organizing principal in fact, that describes how humans came to be.

But my principle obsessions are still watching sitcoms and football.

Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections.

Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.

The principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples is ignorance.

To a mind like mine, restless, and observant of everything that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed; although this subject principally occupied my thoughts, there was nothing that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed.