"No generation has a right to contract..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson

“Self-love . . . is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.”

“I do not agree that an age of pleasure is no compensation for a moment of pain.”

“I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.”

“It is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts.”

“Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, "If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?"”

“The good people of Dakota offered to give Calvin Coolidge a farm if he would live on it. I wouldn't advise you to give those people too much credit for generosity. There is not a farmer in any State in the West that wouldn't be glad to give him a farm if he will paint it, fix up the fences and keep up the series of mortgages that are on it. And if you think Coolidge ain't smart, you just watch him not take it.”

“If you're like most members of the Baby Boom generation, you decided somewhere along the line, probably after about four margaritas, to have children. This was inevitable. Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has instilled within each of us a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race, come what may, will never have any disposable income.”

“I guess the negative thing that happens to me is that I'm old now. They said there was a generation I was too young for and now some will say there's probably 10 generations I'm too old for. They'll say, isn't he dead or retired or whatever? Or it just becomes fashionable to say "Oh he's not funny anymore," which, I don't know, maybe to them I'm not. I'm more likely to hear that now than I am to hear that I'm unacceptably risqué.”

“I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.”