American polymath, a leading writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher
Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'
We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information.
The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.
As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones - with ingratitude.