Thomas Jefferson Quotes

No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.

Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than that of face and stature.

Unmerited abuse wounds, while unmerited praise has not the power to heal.

Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?

It will take a thousand years for the frontier to reach the Pacific

A cold-blooded, calculation, unprincipled, usurper, without a virtue, no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.

I hope the terms of Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire, forever disappear from among us... I wish that of Mr. would follow them.

Heliotrope. To be sowed in the spring. A delicious flower, but I suspect it must be planted in boxes and kept in the house in the winter. The smell rewards the care.

The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.

The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.

If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market.

Public offices were not made for private convenience.

Those who wish to be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be.

Don't spend your money till you have it.

The bloom of Monticello is chilled by my solitude.

I enclose to you a copy of the declaration of independence as agreed to by the House, and also, as originally framed. You will judge whether it is the better or worse for the Critics.

In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.

I could say much about politics, our only entertainment here, but you would not care a fig about that.

We do not mean to count or weigh our contributions by any standard other than that of our abilities.

As you are entered with the class of Nat. philosophy, give to it the hours of lecture, but devote all your other time to Mathematics, avoiding company as the bane of all progress.

Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.

We must endeavor to forget our former love for them [the British] and to hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

The difficulty is no longer to find candidates for the offices, but offices for the candidates.

Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want.

[T]he people seem to have deposited the monarchical and taken up the republican government with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.

Every constitution..., and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years [a generation]. If it be enforced longer, it is anact of force, and not of right.

I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living": that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.

I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.

Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent.

I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gaycapital [Paris].

Above all I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to so they won't forget the basic principles of freedom.

I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender.

So much of the presidency is a matter of standing in the path of a Newsham Engine for Quenching Fires, opening one's mouth, and attempting to get a drink.

I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.

Laws ... proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine.

I believe from what I have lately seen that we should be substantially safe were our Citizens Armed, but we have not as many Arms as we have Enemies in the State.

I have now the gloomy prospect of retiring from office loaded with serious debts, which will materially affect the tranquility of my retirement.

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

Man ... feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs not merely at an election, one day in the year, but every day.

Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power.

Never throw off the best affections of nature in the moment when they become most precious to their object; nor fear to extend you hand to save another, lest you should sink yourself.

No man has greater confidence than I have in the spirit of the people, to a rational extent. Whatever they can, they will.

Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country.

The greatest honor of a man is in doing good to his fellow men, not in destroying them.

We see the wisdom of Solon's remark, that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear.

In the environment, every victory is temporary, every defeat permanent.

The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.

I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies

The wisdom of our ages and the blood of our heroes has been devoted to the attainment of trial by jury. It should be the creed of our political faith.

Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory.