Thomas Jefferson (?) Quotes

The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years.

Without health there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object.

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption.

Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.

I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.

I prefer to be remembered for what I have done for others, not what others have done for me.

The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and in-grafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.

It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.

Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.

Hindsight is an exact science. Hold fast to your dreams, for it dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

Nothing but a necessity invincible by any other means can justify ... a prostitution of laws, which constitute the pillars of our whole system of jurisprudence.

It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation, even of that which has injured us most.

I trust there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.

All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature.

The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government

The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone.

The price of barbecue is eternal vigilance.

How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.

Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.

The soil is the gift of God to the living.

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures.

Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

The most effective means of preventing tyranny is to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts.

The plough is to the farmer what the wand is to the sorcerer. Its effect is really like sorcery.

Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.

To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language.

It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.

Self-love . . . is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.

Rejecting all organs of informationbut my senses, I rid myself of the Pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations hyperphysical and antiphysical so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind.

Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.

Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

Wine brightens the life and thinking of anyone

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.

[An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.

I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.