Thomas Jefferson Quotes
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“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”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“He who knows best knows how little he knows”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Information is the currency of democracy.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Power is not alluring to pure minds”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Never spend your money before you have earned it.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“He who receives ideas from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“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”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“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.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
“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.”
- Thomas Jefferson quotes
