Thomas Jefferson Quotes

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.

What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle.

An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy.

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

The only security of all is in a free press.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just

Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms

Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable for, not the rightness, but the uprightness of the decision

The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

If the book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

A room without books is like a life without meaning.

A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.

No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence.

Paper money is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.

I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.

A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate.

The worst day in a man's life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.