Where liberty is, there is my country.
I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.
I have no private interest in the reception of my inventions by the world, having never made, nor proposed to make, the least profit by any of them.
He that has not got a wife is not yet a complete man.
A penny saved is two pence clear.
A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines.
For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.
Don’t throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.
When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.
He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.
Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.
There cannot be a stronger natural right than that of a man’s making the best profit he can of the natural produce of his lands.
My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
