Thomas Jefferson

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“A Man's management of his own purse speaks volumes about character”

“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

“The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.”

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

“Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.”

“He [Weishaupt] says, no one ever laid a surer foundation for liberty than our grand master, Jesus of Nazareth.”

“The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.”

“Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.”

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

“As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.”

“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.”

“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?”

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

“not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.”

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

“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.”