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

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

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

4. “To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.”

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

6. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

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

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

9. “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

10. “Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.”

11. “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.”

12. “Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.”

13. “In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.”

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

15. “Fear is the foundation of most governments.”

16. “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

17. “The happiness of society is the end of government.”

18. “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.”

19. “The only way to ensure the ability to defend oneself is to be armed.”

20. “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.”