Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

Equal rights for all, special privileges for none

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

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...

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

Good wine is a necessity of life for me.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

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.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

A little rebellion is a good thing.

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it's liberty and interests by the most lasting bands

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

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 blind-folded fear.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

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

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.

Delay is preferable to error.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

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

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, not tolerate error as long as reason is left free to combat it.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

Every generation needs a new revolution.

I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to = remain silent.

Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility.

It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

All authority belongs to the people.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

The hole and the patch should be commensurate.

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.

The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.

[A]lthough a republican government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its momentum becomes irresistible.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.

One man with courage is a majority.

Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.

Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Victory and defeat are each of the same price

Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, 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.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour

Health is the requisite after morality

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.

Merchants have no country.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.