Thomas Jefferson Quotations

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

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

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

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

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

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.

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.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

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

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

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

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

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.

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

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

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.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

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.

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.

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

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

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

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.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

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.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

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

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

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.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

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

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

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.

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.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

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.

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.

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.

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

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

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.

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

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

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

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 circle of our felicities.

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

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

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

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

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

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

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.

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

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

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

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. 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 blindfolded fear.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

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

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.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

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.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

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

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.

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.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

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

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

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

I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

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

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

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.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

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

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

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

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

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

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.