I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” — from the debate on the recharter of the Bank Bill (1809)

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principles of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.