Thomas Jefferson Liberty Quotes & Sayings

I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality. — 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

In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object. — Thomas Jefferson

Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power. — Thomas Jefferson

The people are the ultimate guardians of their own liberties. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy ... Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. — Thomas Jefferson

Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. — Thomas Jefferson

To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe. — Thomas Jefferson

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

Yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; — Thomas Jefferson

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. — Thomas Jefferson

Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system. — Thomas Jefferson

It is easily and often overlooked that when Thomas Jefferson asserted that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable human rights, he did so on the ground that they had been endowed by God, our Creator. — Tom Stoppard

Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author — Thomas Jefferson

Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried. — Thomas Jefferson

This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe. at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together. — Thomas Jefferson

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

Thomas Jefferson ... knew what schools were for
to ensure that citizens would know when and how to protect their liberty ... It would not have come easily to the mind of such a man, as it does to political leaders today, that the young should be taught to read exclusively for the purpose of increasing their economic productivity. — Neil Postman

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. — Thomas Jefferson

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means. — 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

Thomas Jefferson High
School [..] His high school was named after a slave owner who was also one of
the world's greatest theoreticians on the subject of human liberty. — Kurt Vonnegut

But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. — Thomas Jefferson

I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast ... would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it. — Thomas Jefferson

The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities, of citizens of the United States; and, in the mean time, they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess. — 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

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

The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. — Thomas Jefferson

The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

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

What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate. — Thomas Jefferson

If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence. — Thomas Jefferson

The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches. We must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good. — Thomas Jefferson

Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing ... this enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to it's consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man. — Thomas Jefferson

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for. — 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

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. — Thomas Jefferson

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that? — Chris Gardner

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

Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree. — Thomas Jefferson

When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's 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

[T]hat the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

The flames of freedom which were lighted across this great land of ours in Thomas Jefferson's day have continued to burn with an intense and magnetic light for nearly 200 years. They have been fed by the spiritual fuel which abounds only in a land where an abiding faith in God and recognition of Him as the true Author of Liberty prevail. — J. Edgar Hoover

And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and libraries of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. — Thomas Jefferson

[If] the nature of ... government [were] a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been]. And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope. — Thomas Jefferson

He [Weishaupt] says, no one ever laid a surer foundation for liberty than our grand master, Jesus of Nazareth. — Thomas Jefferson

The moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing. — Thomas Jefferson

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. — Thomas Jefferson

Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

No person shall be restrained of his liberty but by regular process from a court of justice, authorized by a general law ... On complaint of an unlawful imprisonment to any judge whatsoever, he shall have the prisoner immediately brought before him and shall discharge him if his imprisonment be unlawful. The officer in whose custody the prisoner is shall obey the order of the judge, and both judge and officer shall be responsible civilly and criminally for a failure of duty herein. — Thomas Jefferson

We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace on terms which have been contemplated by some powers we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends. — Thomas Jefferson

The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? — Thomas Jefferson

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them. — 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

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

Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with most security for the preservation of a due degree 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

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

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

The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind. — Thomas Jefferson

[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

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

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; ... even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern ... — Thomas Jefferson

Questioning our government's actions does not violate the principles of liberty, equality, and freedom of speech; it exercises them, and by exercise we grow stronger. I have read enough of Thomas Jefferson to feel sure — Barbara Kingsolver

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

It is left ... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges; and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

The poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labor are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little or have friends from whom they derive some succor, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementary aids are given which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds without visible property or vocation, are placed in work houses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor — Thomas Jefferson

I've long believed that one of the mainsprings of our own liberty has been the widespread ownership of property among our people and the expectation that anyone's child, even from the humblest of families, could grow up to own a business or a corporation. Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shopowners, and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, propertyowning citizens-a mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine. — Ronald Reagan

We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude ... If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements ... if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy. — 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

I sincerely pray that all the members of the human family may, in the time prescribed by the Father of us all, find themselves securely established in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment. — Thomas Jefferson

Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise. — Thomas Jefferson

All authority belongs to the people ... In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief with chains of the Constitution. — Thomas Jefferson

Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. — Christopher Hitchens

If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged. — Thomas Jefferson

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! — Thomas Jefferson

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. — Thomas Jefferson

And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. — Thomas Jefferson

A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be. — Thomas Jefferson

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

A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. — Thomas Jefferson

I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance. Even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In, short, the flames kindled on the 4th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these and all who work for them. — Thomas Jefferson

Postpone to the great object of Liberty every smaller motive and passion. — Thomas Jefferson

A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither. — Thomas Jefferson

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance. — Thomas Jefferson

How I longed to see these things; how I longed to see the Liberty Bell and walk on the streets where Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin had walked. — Burl Ives

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread. — Thomas Jefferson

Dependence leads to subservience. — Thomas Jefferson

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed. — Thomas Jefferson

Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions. — 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

Light and liberty go together. — 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

If the question [before justices of the peace] relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact. — Thomas Jefferson

God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." (Thomas Jefferson) — John Price

We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but the guarrantors of only our own. — Thomas Jefferson

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds. — Thomas Jefferson