Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Every gentleman plays billiards, but someone who plays billiards too well, is no gentleman.

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

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

May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man.

A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Every generation needs a new revolution.

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Dependence leads to subservience.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.

I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education.

Good wine is a necessity of life for me.

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.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

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

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.

I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.

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

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians.

Eternal Vigilance is the price of democracy.

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.

Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

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.

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.

Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.