Honesty, disinterestedness and good nature are indispensable to procure the esteem and confidence of those with whom we live, and on whose esteem our happiness depends.

what are the objects of an useful American education? classical knowlege, modern languages & chiefly French, Spanish, & Italian; Mathematics; Natural philosophy; Natural History; Civil History; Ethics.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms

Sir, Your letter of the 15th is received, but Age has long since obliged me to withhold my mind from Speculations of the difficulty of those of your letter, that their are means of artificial buoyancy by which man may be supported in the Air, the Balloon has proved, and that means of directing it may be discovered is against no law of Nature and is therefore possible as in the case of Birds, but to do this by mechanical means alone in a medium so rare and unassisting as air must have the aid of some principal not yet generally known.

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

It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.

Without books, I would certainly die.