Top 1819 Quotes & Sayings by Thomas Jefferson
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American president Thomas Jefferson.
Last updated on September 11, 2024.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
One man with courage is a majority.
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
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.
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
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.
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.
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.
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 natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
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.
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
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.
It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
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.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
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.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
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.
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
We never repent of having eaten too little.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, 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.
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.
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
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.
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
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.
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.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
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 takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
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.
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 boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
Related Authors
Abraham Lincoln Quotes
American
President
Barack Obama Quotes
American
President
Donald Trump Quotes
American
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes
American
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
American
President
George W. Bush Quotes
American
President
George Washington Quotes
American
President
James Madison Quotes
American
President
Joe Biden Quotes
American
President
John F. Kennedy Quotes
American
President
Mike Pence Quotes
American
President
Ronald Reagan Quotes
American
President
Theodore Roosevelt Quotes
American
President
Vladimir Putin Quotes
Russian
President
William J. Clinton Quotes
American
President
Woodrow Wilson Quotes
American
President