154 quotes
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
Thoughts on Government (1776)
When annual elections end, there slavery begins.
Thoughts on Government (1776)
While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
Opposition, nay, open, avowed resistance by arms, against usurpation and lawless violence, is not rebellion by the law of God or the land.
Novanglus Essays (1774)
Slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude and I am utterly averse to the admission of slavery.
You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
Novanglus Essays (1774)
It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.
There are few people in this world with whom I can converse.
Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (1984)
You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
I see in every Page, Something to recommend Christianity in its Purity and Something to discredit its Corruptions.
Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute.
Virtue is not always amiable. Integrity is sometimes ruined by prejudices and by passions.
Human nature with all its infirmities and depravation is still capable of great things.
Remember the frank Veteran acknowledges, that "the word rebel is a convertible term."
Novanglus Essays (1774)
You bid me burn your letters. But I must forget you first.
A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest, as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
Discourses on Davila (1790)
The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult.
Are riches, honors, and beauty going out of fashion? Is not the rage for them, on the contrary, increased faster than improvement in knowledge?
Discourses on Davila (1790)
There is one Resolution I will not omit. Resolved that no Slaves be imported into any of the thirteen colonies.