Thomas Jefferson

"A successful society is characterized by a rising tide of prosperity and well-being for the people."

"The best security for a free people is a well-informed citizenry."

"Practice yourself to be always cheerful under all circumstances."

"The revolution is not an end, but a beginning."

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any."

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."

"Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people."

"The art of life is the art of avoiding pain."

"Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far."

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

"An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second."

"All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, and once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force."

"Taste cannot be controlled by law."

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion."

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."

"He who knows best knows how little he knows."

"Our care should be to preserve the liberty which we have gained."

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others."

"Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind."

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched."

"Every citizen should be at some period of his life, and the man who has never tilled the earth is generally narrow and prejudiced."

"The most successful war seldom pays for its losses."

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind."