“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.”

– Thomas Jefferson,
letter to nephew Peter Carr, 1785

*Picture source

“Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”

– Charles Carroll

“Being well dressed is a beautiful form of politeness.”  

– Unknown

*Photo source: State Library of Queensland

“I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.”

– Abigail Adams,
letter to sister Mary Smith Cranch, 1784

*Photo source

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.”

– Flannery O’Connor

*Photo source

“I practiced excellence in the little things, so that I would be prepared for spontaneous acts of greatness.”

– Robert E. Lee

*Picture source

“Let us then, with courage and confidence, pursue our own federal and republican principles; our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high minded to endure the degradations of the others, possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation, entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them, enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude and the love of man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here, and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens, a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”

– Thomas Jefferson,
excerpt from his First Inaugural Address, March 4th, 1801

*Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800 (source)

“Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”

– James Wilson
(signer of the Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court Justice)

*Picture source

“Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man is not that he has been exempt from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.”

– Patrick Henry

*American soldiers during World War II march on a snow-covered road in Belgium, January 1945 (source)

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”  

– Abigail Adams,
letter to John Quincy Adams