Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies

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

The cutting of heads is become so much a la mode, that one is apt to feel of a morning whether their own is on their shoulders.

If any doubt has arisen as to me, my country [Virginia] will have my political creed in the form of a "Declaration &c." which I was lately directed to draw. This will give decisive proof that my own sentiment concurred with the vote they instructed us to give.

Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.

Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man.

He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force.

Every experience deeply felt in life needs to be passed along. Wheather it be through words and music, chiseled in stone, painted with a brush, or sewn with a needle, it is a way of reaching for immortality.

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The objects of their desires are changed; what they were fond of before has become indifferent; they were free while under the restraint of laws, but they would fain now be free to act against law.

Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.

What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.

Choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom.

With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole.

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

I do love this people [the French] with all my heart, and think that with a better religion and a better form of government and their present governors their condition and country would be most enviable.

I am myself an empiric in natural philosophy, suffering my faith to go no further than my facts. I am pleased, however, to see the efforts of hypothetical speculation, because by the collisions of different hypotheses, truth may be elicited and science advanced in the end.

If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Considering the great importance to the public liberty of the freedom of the press, and the difficulty of submitting it to very precise rules, the laws have thought it less mischievous to give greater scope to its freedom than to the restraint of it.

I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.

Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.

Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?

Nothing is more incumbent on the old than to know when they should get out of the way and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.

Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent and open outrages of law and patriotism as dishonorable as they are injurious

It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead.

Without virtue, happiness cannot be.

The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.

He does most in God's great world who does his best in his own little world.

Travelling is good for your health and necessary for your amusement.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation . . . . Our interest will be to throw open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent to whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs.

Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.

If you have to eat crow, eat it while it's young and tender.

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.

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker, in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has the disposal of them.

Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union.

A strong body makes the mind strong.

I never before knew the full value of trees....What would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full grown.

All authority belongs to the people.

[I]t seems that the Cannibals of Europe are going to eat one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and snake; whichever destroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world.