WednesdayFeb 11, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts: those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking and those that bolt into the mind of their own Accord.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; But moderation in principle is always a vice.
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
Virtue is not hereditary.
Of Burke: As he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.
These are the times that try men's souls.
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Man is not the enemy of Man, but through the medium of a false system of government.
The notion of the Trinity of Gods has enfeebled the belief in one God. A multiplication of beliefs acts as a division of belief; and in proportion as anything is divided it is weakened.
Let the world see that this nation can bear prosperity; And that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to her bravest valor in time of war.
Not a place on earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wreangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.
Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving: it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.
A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men.
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
My own mind is my own church.
War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.
I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.
I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
Such is the irresistible nature of truth that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms! Through the land let the sound of it flee; Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation is principle is always a vice.
Man must go back to nature for information.
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods.
And no less preeminent a champion of American independence than Thomas Paine had the following words of reproach for the Good Book: 'As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book.'
Uncritical reverence for the Founding Fathers was less ubiquitous while they actually lived.... 'The Reign of Terror that raged in America during the latter end of the Washington Administration, and the whole of that of Adams, is enveloped in mystery to me. That there were men in the Government hostile to the representative system, was once their toast, though it is now their overthrow, and therefore the fact is established against them.'
Panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstone of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might have lain forever undiscovered.
It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action; it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
He whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous conscientiousness of honor. It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labor and poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and misery. Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not in that mass.
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance does whatever is dictated to it.
Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property....Horrid mischief would ensue were [the law-abiding] deprived of the use of them.
[Burke] is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
And the final event to himself [Mr. Burke] has been, that, as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.
Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself that is my doctrine.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequences will be the same.
It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engages.
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
It is necessary to the happiness of a man that he be mentally faithful to himself.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.
The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.
What we may obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: t is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods.
O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe, Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her as a stranger and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
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