“I had always been man enough to ruin myself without help.”

“Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.”

“Your friend Will is a good man, too, but I fear he's no longer an archer." "It would have been better, I sometimes think-" "If he had died? Wish death on no man, Thomas, it comes soon enough without a wish."”

“But when a man
speeds toward his own ruin,
a god gives him help.”

“A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.”

“I have seen sights and travelled in countries you cannot imagine. I have been afraid and I have been in danger, and I have never for one moment thought that I would throw myself at at a man for his help.”

“I must say… that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.”

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face - I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.”

“When I went home to my family in May, 1770, from the town meeting in Boston, which was the first I had ever attended, and where I had been chosen in my absence, without any solicitation, one of their representatives, I said to my wife, "I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate." She burst into tears, but instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, "Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined."”

“In a sense, I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself.”