Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
Diplomacy • Relationships
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
Anger • Communication
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
Humility • Leadership • Politics
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Freedom • Politics • Power
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Honesty • Improvement • Philosophy
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.
Authority • Boldness • Knowledge
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Freedom • Government • Politics
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
Curiosity • Nature
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.
Education • Fitness • Health
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.
Equality • Freedom • Happiness
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
Economics • Freedom • Government
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Diplomacy • Peace • Politics
I cannot live without books.
Books • Reading
