Top 328 Jefferson Quotes & Sayings

Al Jefferson. One-on-one on the post, man, can't guard him.

Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot." [Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]

Well, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration of Independence said he wouldn't have any atheists in his cabinet because atheists wouldn't swear an oath to God. That was Jefferson and we have never had any Muslims in the cabinet.

Thomas Jefferson basically secularized Jesus.

[John] Adams's perception of Europe, and especially France, was clearly different than [Tomas] Jefferson's. For Jefferson, the luxury and sophistication of Europe only made American simplicity and virtue appear dearer. For Adams, by contrast, Europe represented what America was fast becoming - a society consumed by luxury and vice and fundamentally riven by a struggle between rich and poor, gentlemen and commoners.

Intellectuals love Jefferson and hate markets, and intellectuals write most of the books. Intellectuals often think that they should, for the benefit of mankind, act as fiduciaries for the clods who don't have to be intellectuals, and I suspect that has to do with [why historians love Jefferson and not Hamilton, even though Hamilton's vision of America's commercial future was vastly more accurate than Jefferson's].

Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce, is the American dream.

Jefferson never entertained the folly that he was of immigrant stock. He considered the English settlers of America courageous conquerors, much like his Saxon forebears, to whom he compared them. To Jefferson, early Americans were the contemporary carriers of the Anglo-Saxon project.

I love heavy metal, Metallica. I'm into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.

We are not living up to Thomas Jefferson's idea of what a trial by jury means.

Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn't anticipate.

Most Americans are unaware that Thomas Jefferson was the first American president to go to war against radical Islam. Jefferson was very concerned with Islam's war-like doctrine and its inability to separate mosque and state.

To walk into the Jefferson memorial is to be in a temple of the pure idolatry of reason

Jefferson owned slaves. He did not believe that all were created equal. He was a racist.

Thomas Jefferson creates the Marines for the Islamic pirates that were happening.

There is a fundamental difference between separation of church and state and denying the spiritual heritage of this country. Inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. are Jefferson's words, 'The God Who gave us life gave us liberty -- can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?'

I think people understand I'm not actually the real Thomas Jefferson.

All Americans mourn the passing of the author of the Declaration of Independence, George Jefferson.

Who would think it possible to redirect historical scholarship by explaining what Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence?

When John Adams - when - James Madison was writing - pretty much writing the Constitution, he got a letter from Thomas Jefferson, who was then-ambassador to France. And Jefferson said - I am paraphrasing - `Do not forget to keep habeas corpus and strengthen it.' That - in - that's the oldest English-speaking right. It goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215.

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

My grandfather was a lot like a white Jewish George Jefferson, and he did not enjoy my work very much.

I've known white Australian girls from wealthy families who were sent to posh private schools, who knew all of that stuff, and I think would recognise much in Jefferson's book. What I related to most strongly was the sexism and misogyny Margo Jefferson had to battle.

The most famous and one of the most thoroughgoing opponents of bank credit was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson reacted to the panic of 1819 as a confirmation of his pessimistic views on banks.

According to Adams, Jefferson proposed that he, Adams, do the writing [pf the Declaration of Independence], but that he declined, telling Jefferson he must do it. Why?" Jefferson asked, as Adams would recount. Reasons enough," Adams said. What can be your reasons?" Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.

All presidents but Jefferson have argued that their first job was to keep us safe. All presidents but Jefferson were wrong. If you read the Constitution, you will see that the President's first job - as Jefferson understood well - is to keep us free.

Not everyone has the survival skills of William Jefferson Clinton.

The American world had - seemingly, at least - become a Jeffersonian world by the election of 1800, which placed Thomas Jefferson in the presidency. Jefferson had been Hamilton's rival in the new government's early years, and Hamilton has figured in the public memory almost as much for that rivalry as for his positive achievements.

[John Adams and Tomas Jefferson] shared experience in 1775 - 1776 in bringing about the separation from Britain and their service in Europe cemented a friendship that in the end withstood the most serious political and religious differences that one could imagine, especially their differences over the French Revolution. It was probably Jefferson's obsession with politeness and civility that kept the relationship from becoming irreparably broken.

I've always envied Thomas Jefferson's bed at Monticello. It's in a tiny alcove, bound by walls at the head and foot.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies, but they became fast friends. And when they passed away on the same day, the last words of one of them was, The country is safe. Jefferson still lives. And the last words of the other was, John Adams will see that things go forward.

Thomas Jefferson understood the greater purpose of the liberty that our Founding Fathers sought during the creation of our Nation. Although it was against the British that the colonists fought for political rights, the true source of the rights of man was clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . . It was self-evident to him that denying these rights was wrong and that he and others must struggle to win what was theirs.

I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech, the better.

I’m not Thomas Jefferson. He was a pussy.

How did Madison get separation through Virginia and later Congress? The Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the smaller sects hated Jefferson; to them he was a secularist of the worst kind. But Madison could get Jefferson's bill passed because the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and smaller sects who were excluded in New England and in the South got together for their own protection.

If the only thing that was interesting about Jefferson Pierce is that he is African-American, I don't think we'd have much of a show.

In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to extreme individualism.

The fact that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves doesn't devalue what he wrote.

The age of Lincoln and Jefferson memorials is over. It will be presidential libraries from now on.

In the home of the brave, Jefferson turning over in his grave.

If Thomas Jefferson had heard us, he probably would have said, 'We shouldn't have free speech.'

We know Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as politicians, but they felt that science was something everyone should have a knowledge of.

Unfortunately, proof of a Jefferson-Hemings liaison was as fanciful as Professor Ellis' war service.

I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And believe me, you are no Thomas Jefferson. (at 1992 Republican party convention, referring to Bill Clinton)

Thomas Jefferson—another gorgeous white boy who would not have been interested in me. This was my problem in a nutshell. To get some play in Charlottesville, you had to be either a Martha Jefferson or a Sally Hemings.

I was reading a lot of Thomas Jefferson at the time, and Jefferson said that every 20 years, if one party has stayed in power, it's your obligation as an American to vote the other party in.

Thomas Jefferson survives.

Jefferson was the rare leader who stood out from the crowd without intimidating it.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said that we should not allow the courts to have a monopoly on the interpretation of what is constitutional and what is not.

I'm a product of a Notre Dame education; those professors taught me a lot about how you separate the city of God from the state. I'm also a reverent follower of the tradition of Thomas Jefferson. My years of public life have simply confirmed the intensity of my belief that what I have learned from Joe Evans and Thomas Jefferson was correct.

In spite of what Thomas Jefferson wrote, all men may be created equal, but not to all women.

In America, Jefferson noted with approval, women knew their place.

Madison loathed Hamilton and loved Jefferson above all.

Civilization just takes it as a given that the whole world was flooding. Then science came and you had geology and modern astrophysics, and time became well understood going back billions of years. So enlightened religious people, as a necessity, had to shed the magical elements of the Bible. A little known fact is that Thomas Jefferson did just that. There's something called the Jefferson Bible. It's not widely publicized because it sort of conflicts with certain people's ideas of what the founding fathers were.

What I saw in Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce, even the villains, are aspects of myself.

But the fascinating and unbelievable-but-true thing about Dr. Jefferson Jeffersonis that he was not a doctor of any kind. He was just an orange juice salesman named Jefferson Jefferson. When he became rich and powerful, he went to court, made "Jefferson" his middle name, and then changed his first name to "Dr." Capital D. Lowercase r. Period.

[Louis] Brandeis, like [Tomas] Jefferson, is an equal opportunity critic of bigness. And he, like Jefferson, sees American history as this incredible clash between small producers, farmers, and small business people on the one hand, and wicked oligarchs and financiers and monopolists on the other.

Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead.

The first presidential veto, by George Washington, was a veto of Alexander Hamilton's formula for apportioning the House, and the one that Washington preferred was one that Thomas Jefferson produced, and that was one partisan issue. The apportionment formula that Jefferson produced gave an extra seat to Virginia. Everybody knew what that game was. Look, partisan interest in the census is simply nothing new.

People have completely lost confidence in our public officials in Jefferson City.