altho’ much of a sceptic in the practice of medecine, I read with pleasure it’s ingenious theories.

I have had a long attack of rheumatism, without fever, & without pain while I kept myself still. a total prostration of the muscles of the back, hips, & thighs deprived me of the power of walking, and leaves it still in a very impaired state. a pain, when I walk, seems to have fixed...

my present course of life admits less reading than I wish. from breakfast, or noon at latest, to dinner, I am mostly on horseback, attending to my farms or other concerns, which I find healthful to my body, mind, & affairs: and the few hours I can pass in my cabinet, are devoured by...

I have the same good opinion of mr Adams which I ever had. I know him to be an honest man, an able one with his pen, and he was a powerful advocate on the floor of Congress. he has been alienated from me by belief in the wretched forgeries lying suggestions, contrived for electioneering purposes,...

I think it a part of his character to suspect foul play in those of whom he is jealous, and not easily to relinquish his suspicions.

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk, & restorative cordial.

there is a fulness of time when men should go, & not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.

I find I am losing sight of the progress of the world of letters. here we talk but of rains & droughts, of blights & frosts, of our ploughs & cattle; & if the topic changes to politics I meddle little with them. in truth I never had a cordial relish for them, & abhor the...

I am become sensible of a great advantage your profession has over most others, that, to the close of your life, you can be always doing good to mankind: whereas a retired politician is like a broken down courser, unfit for the turf, and good for little else. I am endeavoring to recover the...

every man’s own reason must be his oracle.