Thomas Jefferson (?) Quotes

The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it.

Easter was when they nailed Him to the cross. And He never said a mumbling word.

The eyes of our citizens are not sufficiently open to the true cause of our distress. They ascribe them to everything but their true cause, the banking system

All men are created equal.

The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights.

The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.

Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety.

[T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it's power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of theirvirtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!

All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.

On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar.

The last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. we ought, for so dear a stake, to sacrifice every attachment & every enmity.

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

The physician is happy in the attachment of the families in which he practices. All think he has saved one of them, and he finds himself everywhere a welcome guest, a home in every house.

It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.

letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilisation.

The protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree.

The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.

When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. --The Fruit Hunters

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

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

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.

the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.

By making this wine known to the public, I have rendered my country as great a service as if I had enabled it to pay back the national debt.

The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible.

If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

Men as well as rivers grow crooked by following the path of least resistance.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

I have lived temperately....I double the doctor's recommendation of a glass and a half wine each day and even treble it with a friend.

How sublime to look down on the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet!

Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.

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

Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.

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

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

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

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

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

The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.

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