Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

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

...We are all Federalists, and we are all Republicans.

The dead should not rule the living.

The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.

[Based upon the message of "nothing new under the sun" in Ecclesiastes, ] If nothing ever changes, then God has no plan.

History is philosophy teaching by examples.

It is a wise man who said there is no inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.Fillossofee: Messages From a Grandfather, an ebook

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.-Thomas Jefferson

I haven't failed. I've just found 10, 000 ways that don't work.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir

No people who are ignorant can be truly free.

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)

In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitudefrom achieving his goal.Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance

The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.

The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

Jefferson was ambivalent about executive power – until he bore executive responsibility.

All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.

I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.

I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it

Everything yields to diligence

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

When describing the University of Virginia: Here, We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Enlighten the people, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on in a newspaper.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame its parts their functions and actions.

I succeed him no one could replace him.

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

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 questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

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.

Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind.

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

I steer my bark with hope in my heart leaving fear astern.

Of all calamities this is the greatest.

The sword of the law should never fall but on those whose guilt is so apparent as to be pronounced by their friends as well as foes.