Zachary Taylor

I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.

James Polk

Although... the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a party only, but of the whole people of the United States.

Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our government.

I am heartily rejoiced that my term is so near its close. I will soon cease to be a servant and will become a sovereign.

I prefer to supervise the whole operations of Government myself rather than entrust the public business to subordinates.

It becomes us in humility to make our devout acknowledgments to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for the inestimable civil and religious blessings with which we are favored.

Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression.

No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.

The gratitude of the nation to the Sovereign Arbiter of All Human Events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy.

The passion for office among members of Congress is very great, if not absolutely disreputable, and greatly embarrasses the operations of the Government. They create offices by their own votes and then seek to fill them themselves.

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.

There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.

Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good.

Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country's peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family.

With me it is exceptionally true that the Presidency is no bed of roses.

John Tyler

"Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace."

"Patronage is the sword and cannon by which war may be made on the liberty of the human race."

"If the tide of defamation and abuse shall turn, and my administration come to be praised, future Vice-Presidents who may succeed to the Presidency may feel some slight encouragement to pursue an independent course."

""Let it, then, be henceforth proclaimed to the world, that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God."

"In 1840 I was called from my farm to undertake the administration of public affairs and I foresaw that I was called to a bed of thorns. I now leave that bed which has afforded me little rest, and eagerly seek repose in the quiet enjoyments of rural life." (Explaining why he would not run for reelection.)

"Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality."

Willam Harrison

Sir, I wish to understand the true principles of the Government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.

Martin Van Buren

I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men... in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.

To avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequences, I have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy of confining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only as are clearly with the constitutional authority of the Federal Government.

Andrew Jackson

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Elevate those guns a little lower.

Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

Never take counsel of your fears.

No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.

One man with courage makes a majority.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

John Quincy Adams

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

Patience and perseverance have a magical affect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.

To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs.

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

James Monroe

Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.

James Madison

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

All men having power ought to be mistrusted.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

The Constitution of the United States was created by the people of the United States composing the respective states, who alone had the right .

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?

Thomas Jefferson

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

At last now you can be what the old cannot recall and the young long for in dreams, yet still include them all.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Delay is preferable to error.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

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 may be done if we are always doing.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Every generation needs a new revolution.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

How much have cost us the evils that never happened!

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

I cannot live without books.

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

If God is just, I tremble for my country.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

Nations of eternal war [expend] all their energies... in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

One man with courage is a majority.

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

Resort to ridicule only when reason is against us.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to others.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.


To preserve our independence... We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

John Adams

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.

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.

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.

Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.

As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Genius is sorrow's child.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.

I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?

In politics the middle way is none at all.

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity.

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, ''that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.''

George Washington

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better be alone than in bad company.

Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

How soon we forget history...Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman's cares.

I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.

It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.

It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.

It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.

It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

Lenience will operate with greater force, in some instances than rigor. It is therefore my first wish to have all of my conduct distinguished by it.

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.

My manner of living is plain and I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready.

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded. Their indiscriminate violence prostrates for the time all public authority, and its consequences are sometimes extensive and terrible.

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

War - An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour.

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.