Thomas Jefferson Quotes

for the present we may groupe the sciences into Professorships as follows, subject however to be changed according to the qualifications of the persons we may be able to engage.

A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.

But whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their re- establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family.

We might have been a free and great people together.

Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.

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

We are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth... This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once, will be beyond remedy.

That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.

[O]ur rules can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.

That government that governs least governs best.

Force cannot give right.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.

Those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from...instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience.

One insult pocketed soon produces another.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. In order to flourish, the tree of Liberty needs the blood of patriots and tyrants.

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

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

The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

Big banks are more dangerous than standing armies, and the practice of borrowing and spending money to be paid back by the next generation is stealing from their future.

No country and no people can be free and ignorant at the same time.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

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.

The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.

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

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

The hole and the patch should be commensurate.

Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.

Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another.

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

It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations i.e., emancipation of slaves and settlement of the Virginia constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis.

I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it.

1.Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 2.Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 3.Never spend your money before you have it. 4.Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. 5.Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. 6.We never repent of having eaten too little. 7.Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 8.How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened. 9.Take things always by their smooth handle. 10.When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

The doctrines of Jesus are simple and tend all to the happiness of man, that there is only one God and God is perfect. That God and man are one. That to love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself, is the sum of religion. These are the great points on which I endeavor to reform and live my life.

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

We prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form and to any people whatever.

In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and prayer parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use a mere earthly lover.

What country before ever existed a century and a 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.

Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.

Of all the cankers of human happiness none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful an influence, as indolence.

Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.

ours are the only farmers who can read Homer

Whenever there are 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 labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state

It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven. I can scarcely expect bread.