TuesdayJul 08, 2025
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.
My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair.
This institution will be based upon the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
There is no truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.
He who receives an idea from me receives instruction for himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me.
It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead.
In matters of principle, stand like a rock. In matters of taste, swim with the current.
Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
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.
It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.
Were we directed from Washington when to sow, & when to reap, we should soon want bread.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
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.
I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
I hold it to be one of the distinguishing excellences of elective over hereditary successions that the talents which nature has provided in sufficient proportion, should be selected by the society for the govenment of their affairs, rather than that this should be be transmitted through the loins of knaves and fools passing from the debauches of the table to those of the bed.
I know of no safe repository for the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to increase their discretion by education.
Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.
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.
Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life.
In every country where man is free to think and to speak, difference of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences, when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently, and leaving our horizon more bright and serene.
But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Of all exercises walking is the best.
The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
I sincerely congratulate you on the arrival of the mockingbird. Learn all the children to venerate it as a superior being in the form of a bird, or as a being which will haunt them if any harm is done to itself or its eggs.
To Peter Carr, 1785: A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will, in fact, be for life, and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
The sheep are happier of themselves than under the care of a wolf.
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
... whenever any form of government becomes destructive ... it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it...
No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
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.
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servility crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. 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 blindfolded fear.
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
When a man has cast his longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them [offices], a rottenness begins in his conduct.
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignations, none. Usually quoted: Few die and none resign.
Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
Every honest man will suppose honest acts to flow from honest principles, and the rogues may rail without intermission.
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
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.
If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education.
Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language.
The efforts of certain Christian factions to cast themselves as the inheritors of America's Judaeo-Christian tradition find little support in the embarrassing heterodoxy of this Founding Father: 'But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separable as the diamond from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man; outlines which it is lamentable he did not live to fill up. . . . The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object. . . .'
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.
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas.
I sincerely believe ... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
... the science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots: Algebra as far as the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms are often of value in ordinary cases: but all beyond these is but a luxury; a delicious luxury indeed; but not to be in indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence.
He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it a second and third time till at length it becomes habitual.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons X. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons IX. Take things always by their smooth handle.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons VIII. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons VII. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons VI. We never repent of having eaten too little.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons V. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons IV. Never buy what you do not want ... because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons III. Never spend your money before you have it.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons II. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
Thomas Jeffersons Decalogue of Canons I. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Is it the Fourth?
No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.
I believe that justice is instinct and innate, the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing.
Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Information is the currency of democracy.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive fights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
The best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of the first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful.
The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.
Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it is what I have steadfastly believed.
To John Cartwright, 1824: We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles. The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; ...
To George Washington, 1796: One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
Jefferson's 'Commonplace Book,' 1774-1776 Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve, rather, to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
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 Virginia.
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?
Those who bear equally the burdens of government should equally participate in the benefits.
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as of duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
Planting is one of my great amusements, and even of those things which can only be for posterity, for a Septuagenary has no right to count on any thing but annuals.
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, no culture comparable to that of the garden ... But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.
I never told my religion nor scrutinize that of another. I never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another's creed. I have judged of others' religion by their lives, for it is from our lives and not from our words that our religion must be read. By the same test must the world judge me.
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; ... freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.
All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.
Force [is] the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.
I have but one system of ethics for men and for nationsto be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements and under all circumstances, to be open and generous, promoting in the long run even the interests of both.
Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty.
Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
Delay is preferable to error.
To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must take our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labors and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
One man with courage is a majority.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.
I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
I cannot live without books.
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.
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred.
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in the newspaper.
Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun. [Mr. Jefferson rose early everyday for 50 years.]
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.
The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.
Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, And that cannot be limited without being lost.
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.
May it be to the world... to assume the blessings and security of self-government.
It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate - to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.
I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations - to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements and under all circumstances, to be open and generous, promoting in the long run even the interests of both.
Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.
Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.
The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.
The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order.
When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.
To expect a nation to be ignorant and free is to expect something which never has been, and never can be.
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
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