Thomas Jefferson Quotes & Sayings

Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act if all the world were looking at you, and act accordingly. — Thomas Jefferson

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

It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible. — Thomas Jefferson

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges. — Thomas Jefferson

It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end. — Thomas Jefferson

We commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. — Thomas Jefferson

The superiority of chocolate (hot chocolate), both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain. — Thomas Jefferson

The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe, because the corrupting of the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth, and public ones cannot be provided but by levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price. — Thomas Jefferson

I trust there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian. — Thomas Jefferson

I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations - to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements under all circumstances, to be open and generous, promoting in the long run even the interests of both — Thomas Jefferson

I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are. There is scarcely an evil known in these countries, which may not be traced to their king, as its source, nor a good, which is not derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them. — Thomas Jefferson

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

If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter — Thomas Jefferson

I see now our fireside formed into a groupe, no one member of which has a fibre in their composition which can ever produce any jarring or jealousies among us. No irregular passions, no dangerous bias, which may render problematical the future fortunes and happiness of our descendants. — 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

Where everyman is participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year but everyday, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte. — Thomas Jefferson

It is my rule never to take a side in any part in the quarrels of others, nor to inquire into them. I generally presume them to flow from the indulgence of too much passion on both sides, & always find that each party thinks all the wrong was in his adversary. These bickerings, which are always useless, embitter human life more than any other cause ... — Thomas Jefferson

The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people. — Thomas Jefferson

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. — Thomas Jefferson

I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens. — Thomas Jefferson

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

When a uniform exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies,you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity; in such a case, retaliation becomes an act of benevolence. — Thomas Jefferson

By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties. — Thomas Jefferson

Never trust a man who won't accept that there is more than one way to spell a word
Paraphrased — Thomas Jefferson

On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar. — Thomas Jefferson

While learning the language in France a young man's morals, health and fortune are more irresistibly endangered than in any country of the universe. — Thomas Jefferson

God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men. — Thomas Jefferson

Delay is preferable to error. — Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. — Thomas Jefferson

There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance. — Thomas Jefferson

If we suffer ourselves to be frightened from our post by mere lying, surely the enemy will use that weapon; for what one so cheap to those of whose system of politics morality makes no part? — Thomas Jefferson

Among the values of classical learning I estimate the Luxury of reading the Greek & Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals ... I think myself more indebted to my father for this, than for all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my reach. — 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

When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many. — Thomas Jefferson

Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely gives him comfortable subsistence. — Thomas Jefferson

I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery. — Thomas Jefferson

Specie [gold and silver coin] is the most perfect medium because it will preserve its own level; because, having intrinsic and universal value, it can never die in our hands, and it is the surest resource of reliance in time of war. — Thomas Jefferson

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens. — Thomas Jefferson

We have no paupers ... The great mass of our [United States] population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families ... Can any condition of society be more desirable than this? — 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

Health is the requisite after morality — Thomas Jefferson

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

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations. — 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

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. — Thomas Jefferson

It is a happy circumstance in human affairs that evils which are not cured in one way will cure themselves in some other. — Thomas Jefferson

He wove those three threads into a talk ranging from annually spending a week at Halloween as a child collecting candy to giving candy to hundreds of children at Halloween as an adult; from childhood assistance he received from adults, particularly after his parents divorced, to saying I challenge you to be a caring adult in someone's life ... Great times call forth great leaders. — Thomas Jefferson

Letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilisation. — Thomas Jefferson

Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual. — Thomas Jefferson

[A] spirit of justice and friendly accomodation ... is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations. — Thomas Jefferson

Experience has taught me that manufacturers are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort. — Thomas Jefferson

The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter, but we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this, the most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson to John Adams (April 11, 1823) — Thomas Jefferson

The soil is the gift of God to the living. — Thomas Jefferson

The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism ... — Thomas Jefferson

Where thought is free in its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself. — Thomas Jefferson

There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety. — 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

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses. — Thomas Jefferson

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free. — Thomas Jefferson

Question boldly even the existence of God. — Thomas Jefferson

An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens. — Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely wish you may find it convenient to come here. the pleasure of the trip will be less than you expect, but the utility greater. it will make you adore your own country, it's soil, it's climate, it's equality, liberty, laws, people & manners. my god! how little do my countrymen know ... — Thomas Jefferson

The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all. — Thomas Jefferson

Convinced that the republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind, my prayers & efforts shall be cordially distributed to the support of that we have so happily established. It is indeed an animating thought that, while we are securing the rights of ourselves & our posterity, we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also. Heaven help their struggles, and lead them, as it has done us, triumphantly thro' them. — Thomas Jefferson

I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self- government, which we have acquired and shaped for them. — Thomas Jefferson

If you are obliged to neglect any thing, let it be your chemistry. It is the least useful and the least amusing to a country gentleman of all the ordinary branches of science. — Thomas Jefferson

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

To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition. — Thomas Jefferson

Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that. — Thomas Jefferson

We often repent of what we have said, but never, never, of that which we have not. — Thomas Jefferson

The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions. — Thomas Jefferson

An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State. — Thomas Jefferson

Who will govern the governors? There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government. — Thomas Jefferson

To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.' For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. — Thomas Jefferson

When habit has strengthened our sense of duties, they leave us no time for other things; but when young we neglect them and this gives us time for anything. — Thomas Jefferson

To make us one nation as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in Domestic ones gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general [national] and particular [state] governments. — Thomas Jefferson

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. — Thomas Jefferson

I hold it certain that to open the doors of truth and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent. — Thomas Jefferson

I do not agree that an age of pleasure is no compensation for a moment of pain. — Thomas Jefferson

I ... [proposed] three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life and such as should be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally and in their highest degree ... The expenses of [the elementary] schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor. — Thomas Jefferson

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. — Thomas Jefferson

No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism. — Thomas Jefferson

To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language. — Thomas Jefferson

It is important to strengthen the State governments; and as this cannot be done by any change in the Federal Constitution (for the preservation of that is all we need contend for), it must be done by the States themselves, erecting such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the General Government. The only barrier in their power is a wise government. A weak one will lose ground in every contest. — Thomas Jefferson

The days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning. — Thomas Jefferson

My construction of the constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal. — Thomas Jefferson

Everything yields to diligence — Thomas Jefferson

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry. — Thomas Jefferson

My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty; to avoid attracting notice, and to keep my name out of the newspapers. — Thomas Jefferson

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. — Thomas Jefferson

The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution. — Thomas Jefferson

The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics! — Thomas Jefferson

Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. — Thomas Jefferson

The last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. — Thomas Jefferson

What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong. — Thomas Jefferson

Laws ... proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine. — Thomas Jefferson

The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves; they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered. — Thomas Jefferson

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? — Thomas Jefferson