Thomas Jefferson (?) Quotes

Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.

Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.

A lottery is a salutary instrument and a tax... laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize.

I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in their times.

I know nothing more important to inculcate into the minds of young people than the wisdom, the honor, and the blessed comfort of living within their income.

In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.

If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

It is in the love of one's family only that heartfelt happiness is known.

Experience has taught me that manufacturers are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort.

The uniform tenor of a man's life furnishes better evidence of what he has said or done on any particular occasion than the word of any enemy.

History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.

I'd rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers.

I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.

Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.

But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.

There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.

If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the State to be troubled with it.

When sins are dear to us we are too prone to slide into them again. The act of repentance itself is often sweetened with the thought that it clears our account for a repetition of the same sin.

You will perceive by my preaching that I am growing old: it is the privilege of years, and I am sure you will pardon it from the purity of it's motives.

Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.

I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.

If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.

We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.

Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason.

An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.

To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse.

All... natural rights may be abridged or modified in [their] exercise by law.

The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere lapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being more unintelligible.

The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.

A good neighbor is a very desireable thing.

Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.

My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our government may be pure and perpetual.

It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so.

The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. Let it be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ.

. . . in the full tide of successful experiment.

It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.

Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another.

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.

He does most in God's great world who does his best in his own little world.

preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.

The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance

Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.

Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.

Experience has proved to us that a dollar of silver disappears for every dollar of paper emitted.

I never saw an instance of one or two disputants convincing the other by argument.

I long to be in the midst of the children, and have more pleasure in their little follies than in the wisdom of the wise.

It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.

Trial by jury is part of that bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.