Top 1819 Quotes & Sayings by Thomas Jefferson - Page 3

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.

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

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

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

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

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

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

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

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

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.

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.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

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

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.

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

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.

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

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

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

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

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

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

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

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

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

I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.

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.

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.

A true patriot will defend his country from its government.

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.

The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.

There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.

The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.