Nothing is so disgusting to our sex as want of cleanliness and delicacy in yours.
To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language.
Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.
But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.
Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.
If any doubt has arisen as to me, my country Virginia will have my political creed in the form of a Declaration andc. which I was lately directed to draw. This will give decisive proof that my own sentiment concurred with the vote they instructed us to give.
It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations i.e., emancipation of slaves and settlement of the Virginia constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis.
But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.
An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.
Longer Version:
An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.
I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital Paris.
I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.
Gaming corrupts our disposition and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.
The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of Heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind.
There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded...2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last.
Morals were too essential to the happiness of man, to be risked on the uncertain combinations of the head. Nature laid their foundation, therefore, in sentiment, not in science.
How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.
Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Longer Version:
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
The rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.
Should things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights.
I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.
Inspirational Quotes on: Honesty, Simplicity, Secret, Universe, Modesty, Peace
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations -- to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements under all circumstances, to be open and generous, promoting in the long run even the interests of both.
The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature. The healthy, strong and bold cherishes them, and is formed a Whig by nature.
A strong body makes the mind strong.
Longer Version:
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give
you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.
So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.
That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.
I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. .
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.
No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.
Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.
Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.
In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.
A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not an article for mere consumption, but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
Longer Version:
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual.
I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.
We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.
On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.
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.
The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I.
We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.
Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.
How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.
I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man.
If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.
The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.
Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians.
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
It is every Americans' right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself.
The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.
The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.
Those who live by mystery and charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy -- the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man -- endeavored to crush your well-earned and well-deserved fame.
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
Longer Version:
I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.
We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists.
If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education.
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.
I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality.
Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.