“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

I cannot live without books.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

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

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

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

On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more.

It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice.

We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.

Good wine is a necessity of life for me.

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.