154 quotes
Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.
All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity, let the blackguard Paine say what he will; it is resignation to God, it is goodness itself to man.
I am surprised at the suddenness as well as the greatness of this revolution... It is the will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever.
The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Although neither nation has been brought to admit that they were chargeable with the first infraction, yet no American can forget the carrying off the negroes.
I read my eyes out and can't read half enough. … The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.
What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
Inaugural Address (1797)
On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamors of the populace.
Boston Massacre trial (1770)
Slavery is an evil of Colossal Magnitude.
The people ... have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's Service, when it is violating all his Laws.
The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated.
Government has no right to hurt the hair of an Atheist for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices.
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
[N]o pretext, arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Treaty with the bey of Tunis (1797)
The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.
Thoughts on Government (1776)
The American Revolution was not a common event.
What do we mean by the American Revolution? (1818)
Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. ... What a Eutopia — What a Paradise would this region be!