Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 3

All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.
Thomas Jefferson
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
Thomas Jefferson
A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life:1. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day.2. Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.3. Never spend your money before you have it.4. Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.5. Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves.6. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.7. We never repent of having eat too little.8. Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.9. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.10. Take things always by their smooth handle.11. Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.12. When angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100.
Thomas Jefferson
The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied...and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.
Thomas Jefferson
So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.
Thomas Jefferson
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Thomas Jefferson
...vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.
Thomas Jefferson
We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
Thomas Jefferson
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.
Thomas Jefferson
It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.
Thomas Jefferson
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment
Thomas Jefferson
No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.
Thomas Jefferson
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
Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting
Thomas Jefferson
I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,...[One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.
Thomas Jefferson
The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.
Thomas Jefferson
The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson
. . . The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.
Thomas Jefferson
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
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
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
Thomas Jefferson
Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson asked himself “In what country on earth would you rather live ” He first answered “Certainly in my own where are all my friends my relations and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life.” But he continued “which would be your second choice ” His answer “France.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitudefrom achieving his goal.Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson's Letter to John Holmes on the Missouri Statehood Question – April 20, 1820I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence too, from this act of power, would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a State. This certainly is the exclusive right of every State, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say, that the non- freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other State?I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.Th. Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.
Thomas Jefferson
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.
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
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. Tosay that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is tosay they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels,no soul. I cannot reason otherwise .. . without plunginginto the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I amsatisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things whichare, without tormenting or troubling myself aboutthose which may indeed be, but of which I have noevidence.
Thomas Jefferson
Question with boldness even the existence of aGod; because, if there be one, he must more approve ofthe homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large...
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
The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.(A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.)
Thomas Jefferson
That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)
Thomas Jefferson
The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.
Thomas Jefferson
I hope we shall ... crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.
Thomas Jefferson
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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...
Thomas Jefferson
It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste.
Thomas Jefferson
I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.
Thomas Jefferson
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.
Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson
The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.--The Fruit Hunters
Thomas Jefferson
If we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers [Gospels] father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor... We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications... That sect [Jews] had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust... Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law... That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.[Letter to William Short, 4 August, 1820]
Thomas Jefferson
No people who are ignorant can be truly free.
Thomas Jefferson
no people can be both ignorant and free.
Thomas Jefferson
The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.
Thomas Jefferson
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir
Thomas Jefferson
Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.
Thomas Jefferson
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
Thomas Jefferson
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.
Thomas Jefferson