Best Thomas Jefferson Quotes to Inspire and Guide You

Thomas Jefferson served as the Third President of America and was a diplomat, lawyer, architect, and philosopher. Between 1797 and 1801 he served as the second vice president of the United States. Jefferson always motivated American Colonists to get free from Great Britain and form a new nation. He was a supporter of individual rights, democracy, and republicanism. 

Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

When you are honest, you will take everything with justice, and without honesty, you cannot proceed towards wisdom. An honest person has the key to success, love, dignity, and peace. Honesty in the practice makes deploying rules easy. Without honesty, no data or information is reliable. 

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

Nowadays, media is given so much attention that sometimes they post such news that has nothing to do with the common people. Newspapers sometimes depict stories that have a sentence with one meaning written in different ways. No doubt it helps us to get information, but these days newspapers have news mostly about scams and crimes which upsets the mind by reading them.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing it.

The meaning of 'idle' means the time we spend on something other than what we are supposed to do. We know we should do something, but we get distracted by something else. If we determine not to be idle, we can minimize the lost time and make every moment valuable. 

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

To achieve your goals and to be successful in life, you must play a role with the right mental attitude. After being available with every resource, it is important to utilize the resources with the right mental attitude to achieve what we aim for. Having the wrong mental attitude is toxic to oneself and stops one from having a fixed goal and work for it with full concentration. 

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. 

One should speak directly and to the point. Speaking more than what is required can lead to a situation where you will end up saying such things that you were not supposed to say. When a little of the whole can fill your expectations, do not go for more than that.

I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

People who do not believe in luck, for them, whatever you achieve in your life is due to your hard work and efforts. According to those who believe in luck, being in the right place gives you everything. But remember, you are only responsible for your success. Even if there is luck, it is only 2%, but the 98% probability of your success depends on your efforts, causes, and willpower. 

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. 

If you stay calm, you are ahead of other people panicking or getting emotional. We met experiences according to our needs. Some things come to our lives generally, and that does not mean is necessarily an experience. It can be a need or something to make you happy. 

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

There are no limits on what the future will be, and it is up to us to decide what kind of world we want to have in our future. You will be more productive. You will have greater self-control over your actions. You will gain clarity on your vision & direction that you wish to take in life.

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

The government is chosen for the people and by the people with an expectation that the common people will get their problems resolved. A good government should always be ready to listen to the common people and implement on the issues. Service for the people must be the only objective of a good government. 

Continue reading the best Thomas Jefferson quotes......

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

Life is long; make it large. Live it the way that you want to be immortal. Everyone is alive, but how many are living? If you travel through every path and explore every depth of it, you will feel that you came so far. Socialize, make friends, build memories, be good to others and yourself, spread love, gain knowledge, laugh, help the helpless, love the animals, and your life will be worth it.

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

We often run from reality, even when we know the truth and the fact that the path towards which we are moving is not right. Just for feeling good, we choose the wrong path and go against our conscience, and that is what gets hurts when we are against it.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

No one is responsible for giving or taking away happiness from one's life. We alone are responsible for our happiness, and it comes if we allow it. It does not depend on when we are, but happiness is always a result of positiveness, calmness, conscience, right mental attitude, hard work, good health, and freedom. Once we achieve and are habitual of these attributes, no one can take away our happiness from us. 

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

Walking strengthens the body; mood and we get to inhale fresh air. It makes digestion better, removed tiredness, and brings flexibility to the body. One who walks daily can maintain his weight as well as will affect his height. 

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

True friendship stays no matter what. A true friend is not a part of happiness but is also there to take away the pain. If he is part of sunshine, then he also provides shade. He cries, laughs, fights with you be he never leaves. Having one true friend in life is a blessing as we can always share everything with that person without any fear. 

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.

He who belongs to the world is free to live within the society. A person has the freedom to choose what is right and wrong for him, to raise his voice against the odds, and to not live under anyone's control. No one has the right to take this liberty from us until death. 

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

Doing good to others not only put a smile on their face but also gives us pleasure. Doing good should not have authenticity or credits and must be free from all buts of society. It has many individual benefits, like keeping oneself happy, satisfaction, mental peace, and soft communication. It depicts your character in society and maintains social well-being.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

Things are sorted easily and quickly when handled smoothly. A person who creates chaos will always make the situation more complicated, while a calm person can handle it simply. Holding things by the smooth handle would not waste much time in one's life and can make life sorted easily. 

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Just for a while, close your eyes and think, are you happy? Is there a kind of a pain in your body without sickness or disease or something from deep inside troubling you? If the answer holds a yes, then you are not happy. Putting a smile in front of the world can make you a happy person for them, but what is the point of showing fake happiness if you are not happy from your heart and mind. Never in life do this to yourself. You matter in the world for yourself first and no matter what keep yourself ahead before others. 

Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes and Sayings

Here are some of the best quotes and sayings from Thomas Jefferson:

1. Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

2. There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

3. I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.

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

5. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

6. Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

7. The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

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

9. I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

10. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.

11. I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.

12. They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.

13. Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.

14. A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.

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

16. Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

17. The more ignorant we become the less value we set on science, and the less inclination we shall have to seek it.

18. I cannot live without books.

19. Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...entangling alliances with none

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

21. Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace

22. I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

23. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

24. How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

25. Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.

26. We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

27. Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

28. We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

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

30. 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.

31. ...We are all Federalists, and we are all Republicans.

32. The dead should not rule the living.

33. The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.

34. Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

35. History is philosophy teaching by examples.

36. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.-Thomas Jefferson

37. I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

38. I haven't failed. I've just found 10, 000 ways that don't work.

39. A Man's management of his own purse speaks volumes about character

40. The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.

41. Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.

42. Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir

43. no people can be both ignorant and free.

44. No people who are ignorant can be truly free.

45. To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

46. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

47. It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice

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

49. That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)

50. It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

51. In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

52. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.

53. Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitudefrom achieving his goal.Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.

54. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

55. In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance

56. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.

57. The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.

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

59. A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

60. Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.

61. All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.

62. I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.

63. I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it

64. Everything yields to diligence

65. If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

66. It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

67. Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

68. New York, like London, seems to be a cloacina [toilet] of all the depravities of human nature.

69. An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

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

71. Enlighten the people, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

72. Advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on in a newspaper.

73. All authority belongs to the people.

74. Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

75. No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame its parts their functions and actions.

76. I succeed him no one could replace him.

77. No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

78. I am mortified to be told that in the United States of America the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry and of criminal inquiry too.

79. In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

80. Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

81. I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

82. It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

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

84. Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

85. That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves.

86. I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

87. The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

88. Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us but is always the result of a good conscience good health occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.

89. Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind.

90. It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.

91. I steer my bark with hope in my heart leaving fear astern.

92. Of all calamities this is the greatest.

93. The sword of the law should never fall but on those whose guilt is so apparent as to be pronounced by their friends as well as foes.

94. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

95. The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.

96. The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.

97. I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

98. It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

99. The sun - my almighty physician.

100. I do not take a single newspaper nor read one a month and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

101. Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

102. If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few: by resignation none.

103. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any.

104. It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion.

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

106. The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

107. Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on office a rottenness begins in his conduct.

108. If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few by resignation none.

109. I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

110. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

111. No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.

112. Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.

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

114. The hole and the patch should be commensurate.

115. A republican government is slow to move yet when once in motion its momentum becomes irresistible.

116. 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.

117. Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

118. Equal rights for all special privileges for none.

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

120. For God's sake let us freely hear both sides!

121. Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

122. Peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none.

123. I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

124. Taste cannot be controlled by law.

125. I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

126. I like the dreams for the future better than the history of the past.

127. When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself as public property.

128. The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.

129. War is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

130. No nation is drunken where wine is cheap and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is in truth the only antidote to the bane of whiskey.

131. How much pain they have cost us the evils which have never happened.

132. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

133. Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

134. I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

135. One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

136. The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

137. In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

138. The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

139. There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

140. In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

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

142. It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

143. Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

144. Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.

145. Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

146. I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

147. It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

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

149. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

150. Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

151. Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

152. The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

153. He who knows best knows how little he knows.

154. For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

155. I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

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

157. Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

158. Power is not alluring to pure minds.

159. Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

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

161. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

162. I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

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

164. I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

165. There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.

166. My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

167. We never repent of having eaten too little.

168. Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

169. Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

170. One man with courage is a majority.

171. One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

172. I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

173. When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

174. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

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

176. The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

177. Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

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

179. Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

180. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

181. Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

182. 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?

183. A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

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

185. No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

186. Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

187. Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

188. If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

189. The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

190. That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

191. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

192. Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

193. Never spend your money before you have earned it.

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

195. 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.

196. Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

197. Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

198. There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

199. When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

200. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

201. The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

Conclusion

In this article, we have covered some of the best Thomas Jefferson quotes from Government, Democracy, Religion to Education.

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Co-author: Shraddha Thuwal

Shraddha Thuwal is the author of the book "Let us Conquer over weakness". She is a blogger and her work has been published in various anthologies. By writing, she aims to reach out to people, create awareness and create a positive impact globally.