Thomas Jefferson Quotes

994 Sourced Quotes

What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Thomas Jefferson
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.

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

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

Thomas Jefferson
Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will; collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.

Thomas Jefferson
The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism...

Thomas Jefferson
But inequality of representation in both Houses of our legislature, is not the only republican heresy in this first essay of our revolutionary patriots at forming a constitution. For let it be agreed that a government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns (not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city, or small township, but) by representatives chosen by himself, and responsible to him at short periods, and let us bring to the test of this canon every branch of our constitution.

Thomas Jefferson
We often repent of what we have said, but never, never, of that which we have not.

Thomas Jefferson
There can be no safer deposit on earth than the Treasury of the United States.

Thomas Jefferson
The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

Thomas Jefferson
I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.

Thomas Jefferson
That this privilege of giving or of withholding our monies is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative, which if left altogether without control may be exercised to our great oppression; and all history shews how efficacious is its intercession for redress of grievances and re-establishment of rights, and how improvident would be the surrender of so powerful a mediator

Thomas Jefferson
I have great confidence in the common sense of mankind in general.

Thomas Jefferson
Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential.

Thomas Jefferson
I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.

Thomas Jefferson
If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market.

Thomas Jefferson
Revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts.

Thomas Jefferson
I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents... The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature, for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society... Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which, in the hands of the canaille [the masses] of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private.

Thomas Jefferson
The mother principle [is] that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.'.

Thomas Jefferson
It is a cruel thought, that, when we feel ourselves standing on the firmest ground in every respect, the cursed arts of our secret enemies, combining with other causes, should effect, by depreciating our money, what the open arms of a powerful enemy could not.

Thomas Jefferson
Establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war.

Thomas Jefferson
It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

Thomas Jefferson
It is an essential attribute of the jurisdiction of every country
to preserve peace, to punish acts in breach of it, and to restore property taken by force within
its limits.

Thomas Jefferson
Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.

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

Thomas Jefferson