Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
As far as I can tell just about every word ever spoken or written by Thomas Jefferson is worth quoting on a regular basis. He quite likely was the most intelligent man who ever lived.
"A little rebellion now and then...is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Letter to James Madison, 1787
"An honest man can feel no pleasure in
the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Melish, January 13, 1813
"Be polite to all, but intimate with few."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), speech, 1808
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper (February 10, 1814)
"Delay is preferable to error."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%."
Thomas Jefferson
"Determine never to be idle...It is
wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing."
Thomas Jefferson
"Do
not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath
it."
Thomas Jefferson
"Enlighten the people, generally, and
tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of
day."
Thomas Jefferson
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Every citizen should be a soldier.
This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free
state."
Thomas Jefferson
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Health is worth more than
learning."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to his cousin John Garland Jefferson, June 11, 1790
"Honesty is the first chapter of the
book of wisdom."
Thomas Jefferson
"I'm a great believer in luck, and I
find the harder I work the more I have of it."
Thomas Jefferson
"I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1799
"I believe that banking institutions
are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people
ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by
inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up
around [the banks] 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."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
"I believe that justice is instinct and innate, the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"I cannot live without books."
Thomas Jefferson
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association
"I do not take a single newspaper, nor
read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it."
Thomas Jefferson
"I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"I have the consolation of having
added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring
with hands clean as they are empty."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Count Diodati, 1807
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion .... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (From a letter from Jefferson to a friend of his) (See "Rule by Secrecy" page 219
"I like the dreams of the future, better than the history of the past."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"I live for books."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"I never told my religion nor scrutinize that of another. I never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another's creed. I have judged of others' religion by their lives, for it is from our lives and not from our words that our religion must be read. By the same test must the world judge me."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"I read no newspaper now but
Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the
advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a
newspaper."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Nathaniel Macon, January 12, 1819
"I would rather be exposed to the
inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a
degree of it."
Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
"If our house be on fire, without
inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish
it."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Lewis, Jr., May 9, 1798
"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), (Notes on Virginia, 1782)
"In matters of style,
swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
Thomas Jefferson
"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Notes on the State of Virginia - denouncing the evils of slavery
"Is it the Fourth?"
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Notes on Virginia
"It is neither wealth nor
splendor, but tranquility and Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how
much may be done if we are always doing."
Thomas Jefferson
"My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), 1801
"My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war--and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Never fear the want of
business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of
employment."
Thomas Jefferson
"Never spend your money
before you have it."
Thomas Jefferson
"Never trouble another
for what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
"No government ought to
be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, September 9, 1792
"No instance exists of a
person's writing two languages perfectly. That will always appear to be his
native language which was most familiar to him in his youth."
Thomas Jefferson
"No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Nothing gives one person
so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all
circumstances."
Thomas Jefferson
"Our friendships are precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of
life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part is sunshine."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded faith."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
Thomas Jefferson (Motto on his seal)
"Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Notes on the State of Virginia
"Say nothing of my
religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is
to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the
religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one."
Thomas Jefferson
"Shake off all the fears
of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely [severely ?]
crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every
fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that
of blindfolded fear."
Thomas Jefferson
"Some men look at
constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the
covenant, too sacred to be touched."
Thomas Jefferson, Resolutions, 1803
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the governing of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), First Inaugural Address
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"The happiest moments of my life have a been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
"The man who reads
nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but
newspapers."
Thomas Jefferson
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson" (1743 - 1826)
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"The will of the people
is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free
expression should be our first object."
Thomas Jefferson
"There is nothing more unequal, than the equal treatment of unequal people."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"Walking is the best
possible exercise. Habituate yourself to
walk very far."
Thomas Jefferson
"We confide in our
strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing
it."
Thomas Jefferson
"We in America do not
have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who
participate."
Thomas Jefferson
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816
"We never regret having eaten too little."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property"
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred."
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Writings
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...
"
Thomas Jefferson (The Declaration of Independence)
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Quotes to sort