Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.

Thomas Jefferson
Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.

Thomas Jefferson
It will be said that great societies cannot exist without government.

Thomas Jefferson
I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new Constitution by nine States. It is a good canvas, on which some strokes only want retouching. What these are, I think are sufficiently manifested by the general voice from north to south, which calls for a bill of rights.

Thomas Jefferson
It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

Thomas Jefferson
But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

Thomas Jefferson
Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

Thomas Jefferson
Honesty, disinterestedness and good nature are indispensable to procure the esteem and confidence of those with whom we live, and on whose esteem our happiness depends.

Thomas Jefferson
The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.

Thomas Jefferson
I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old.

Thomas Jefferson
The Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step in, and to make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them.

Thomas Jefferson
I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations - to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements under all circumstances, to be open and generous, promoting in the long run even the interests of both

Thomas Jefferson
With respect to modern languages, French, as I have before observed, is indispensible. Next to this the Spanish is most important to an American. Our connection with Spain is already important and will become daily more so. Besides this the antient part of American history is written chiefly in Spanish.

Thomas Jefferson
The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived. To avoid this they should be instructed to a certain degree.

Thomas Jefferson
He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.
Of George Washington

Thomas Jefferson
It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.

Thomas Jefferson
Whether the succeeding generation is to be more virtuous than their predecessors, I cannot say ; but I am sure they will have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson
To be really useful, we must keep pace with the state of society, and not dishearten it by attempts at what its population, means, or occupations will fail in attempting.

Thomas Jefferson
In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.

Thomas Jefferson
The priests of the different religious sects, who dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of day-light; and scowl on it the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies on which they live. In this the Presbyterian clergy take the lead. the tocsin is sounded in all their pulpits, and the first alarm denounced is against the particular creed of Doctr. Cooper; and as impudently denounced as if they really knew what it is.

Thomas Jefferson
Music, drawing, books, invention & exercise will be so many resources to you against ennui.

Thomas Jefferson
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?

Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none.

Thomas Jefferson
The boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the sole guardians of the principles we deliver over to them.

Thomas Jefferson
We took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.

Thomas Jefferson
Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so great advantage over another, as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Thomas Jefferson
The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent.

Thomas Jefferson
Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.

Thomas Jefferson
Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.

Thomas Jefferson