Thomas Jefferson Quotes

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson

If God is just, I tremble for my country.
Thomas Jefferson

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

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

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.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Thomas Jefferson

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Thomas Jefferson

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
Thomas Jefferson

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

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
Thomas Jefferson

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Thomas Jefferson

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
Thomas Jefferson

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

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

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

One man with courage is a majority.
Thomas Jefferson

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

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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.
Thomas Jefferson

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
Thomas Jefferson

Taste cannot be controlled by law.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson

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

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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