“Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them.”
“No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.”
“It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour.”
“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquillity and occupation which give happiness.”
“In matters of principals, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.”
“To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.”
“I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.”
“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”
“A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”
“A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.”
“The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.”
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers.”
“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely happier for it.”
“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
“I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.”
“The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”
“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.”
“Nothing gives a person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”
“It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.”
“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”
“Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one's family and affairs.”
“Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.”
“It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.”
“I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.”
“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.”
“Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.”
“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”
“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.”