Thomas Jefferson

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation with a right by the will of its majority to bind themselves but none to bind the succeeding generation more than the inhabitants of another country.

My theory has always been that if we are to dream the flatteries of hope are as cheap and pleasanter than the gloom of despair.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal, nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

A wise and frugal Government which shall restrain men from injuring one another which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

Money not morality is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

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

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans and must be that of every free state.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

When the people fear the government there is tyranny. When the government fears the people there is liberty.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body it gives boldness enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction to wit: by consolidation of power first and then corruption its necessary consequence.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics in religion in philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

If God is just I tremble for my country.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people, that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

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.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

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

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

Commerce with all nations alliance with none should be our motto.

Experience hath shewn that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have in time and by slow operations perverted it into tyranny.

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretence of taking care of them they must become happy.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

I do not take a single newspaper nor read one a month and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

So confident am I in the intentions as well as wisdom of the government that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done either cannot or ought not to be done.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

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

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers whose trade it is to question everything yield nothing and talk by the hour?

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

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

One man with courage is a majority.

Dependence begets subservience and venality suffocates the germ of virtue and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

In matters of style swim with the current, in matters of principle stand like a rock.

Peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones, to believe nothing than to believe what is wrong.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because if there be one he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind-folded fear.

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.

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.

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

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

The moment a person forms a theory his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Be polite to all but intimate with few.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house for hundreds of years. It is not then an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital and often in the case of professional men setting out in life it is their only capital.

The earth belongs to the living not to the dead.

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

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

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

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government and what no just government should refuse or rest on inference.

I never will by any word or act bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Wisdom, I know, is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous and illy bears the presence of a rival.

But friendship is precious not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

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

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

In truth politeness is artificial good humor it covers the natural want of it and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least good or bad.

In every country and every age the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it.

The good opinion of mankind like the lever of Archimedes with the given fulcrum moves the world.

Whenever you do a thing act as if all the world were watching.

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors hostilities shall cease on our part also.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first therefore to seek them blindfold and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

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

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

I am mortified to be told that in the United States of America the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization it expects what never was and never will be.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

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

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

One loves to possess arms though they hope never to have occasion for them.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

How much pain they have cost us the evils which have never happened.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.