Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail.

The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.

I prefer to be remembered for what I have done for others, not what others have done for me.

Dependence begets subservience and paves the way for tyranny.

I enclose to you a copy of the declaration of independence as agreed to by the House, and also, as originally framed. You will judge whether it is the better or worse for the Critics.

Without health there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of [any difficult situation] in the easiest manner possible.

An acre of the best ground for hemp, is to be selected and sewn in hemp and be kept for a permanent hemp patch.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

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

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

The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.

There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.

The difficulty is no longer to find candidates for the offices, but offices for the candidates.

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

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

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.

I'd rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers.

The possession of facts is knowledge; the use of them is wisdom.

Sensibility of mind is indeed the parent of every virtue, but it is the parent of much misery, too.

Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.

But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.

Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.

Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.

Men as well as rivers grow crooked by following the path of least resistance.

Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced me that this would be very mischievous.

The sun of her [Great Britain] glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the Channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.

No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.

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.

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.

A Man's management of his own purse speaks volumes about character

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.

I do not pretend that language is science. It isan instrument for the attainment of science.

It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.

Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches.

I have now the gloomy prospect of retiring from office loaded with serious debts, which will materially affect the tranquility of my retirement.

Planting is one of my great amusements, and even of those things which can only be for posterity, for a Septuagenary has no right to count on any thing but annuals.

Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man.

The issue for patents for new discovers has given a spring to invention beyond my conception.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

Every constitution..., and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years [a generation]. If it be enforced longer, it is anact of force, and not of right.

I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.

You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.