Thomas Jefferson Quotes

It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.

Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.

Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.

Civil officials have no business meddling in private religious affairs.

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

All authority belongs to the people.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.

The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land.

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.

The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of Heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind.

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural.

Exercise and application produce order in our affairs, health of body, cheerfulness of mind, and these make us precious to our friends

What i value more than all things, good humor.

Preachers dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.

He who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me.

Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself.

No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead ofpersuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour.

I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

[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!

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.