Thomas Jefferson (?) Quotes

Revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts.

We figure great careers aren't made. They're experienced.

An acre of the best ground for hemp, is to be selected and sewn in hemp and be kept for a permanent hemp patch.

I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. He is the most unfit man I know for such a place.

One generation cannot bind another.

Our minds and hearts are free to believe everything or nothing at all - and it is our duty to protect and perpetuate this sacred culture of freedom.

The smell rewards the care.

The President is bound to stop at the limits prescribed by our Constitution and law to the authorities in his hands, [and this] would apply in an occasion of peace as well as war.

The happiest hours of my life have been spent in the flow of affection among friends.

Although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice.

Our people shall be free

Our bills shall not be killed.

Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.

I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom & happiness of man.

for the present we may groupe the sciences into Professorships as follows, subject however to be changed according to the qualifications of the persons we may be able to engage.

this interesting subject, which, if the condition of man is to be progressively ameliorated, as we fondly hope and believe, is to be the chief instrument in effecting it.

Drawing ... is an innocent & engaging amusement, often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to become a mother & an instructor.

They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.

The ocean ... like the air, is the common birth-right of mankind.

State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

History teaches the young the virtues of freedom. By apprising them of the past it will enable them to judge the future.

Neither believe nor reject any thing because any other person, or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven.

The first object of human association [is] the full improvement of their condition.

The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.

It will be said that great societies cannot exist without government.

It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that [a society without government, as among our Indians] is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population.

The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.

I have so much confidence in the good sense of man, and his qualifications for self-government, that I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force.

Every man's reason is his own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority, will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed.

If virtuous, the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics.

I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.

I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.

A government held together by the bands of reason only, requires much compromise of opinion.

Every man has a commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error.

If we suffer ourselves to be frightened from our post by mere lying, surely the enemy will use that weapon; for what one so cheap to those of whose system of politics morality makes no part?

I have learned to be less confident in the conclusions of human reason, and give more credit to the honesty of contrary opinions.

We wish the happiness and prosperity of every nation.

[A] spirit of justice and friendly accomodation...is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations.

Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose are to provide for defense by all those means to which our resources are competent.

We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.

Newspapers . . . serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.

Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.

Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family.

But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.

The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.

Circumstances sometimes require, that rights the most unquestionable should be advanced with delicacy.

Laws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.

No one has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature.

The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself.