Thomas Jefferson Quotes

994 Sourced Quotes

I hope the necessity will at length be seen of establishing institutions, here as in Europe, where every branch of science, useful at this day, may be taught in it's highest degrees.

Thomas Jefferson
[America has] room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation.

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

Thomas Jefferson
That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.

Thomas Jefferson
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.

Thomas Jefferson
You will next read the new testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions 1. of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven: and 2. of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, & was Punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile or death in furcâ.

Thomas Jefferson
One war, such as that of our Revolution, is enough for one life.

Thomas Jefferson
It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.

Thomas Jefferson
Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.

Thomas Jefferson
Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible.

Thomas Jefferson
With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions.

Thomas Jefferson
Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

Thomas Jefferson
Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

Thomas Jefferson
We must therefore... hold them [the British] as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

Thomas Jefferson
Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United States; its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations.

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

Thomas Jefferson
Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect.

Thomas Jefferson
Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself.

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

Thomas Jefferson
The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us....

Thomas Jefferson
The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties.

Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Thomas Jefferson
The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods.

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

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 have learned to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.

Thomas Jefferson
Those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from...instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience.

Thomas Jefferson
My religious reading has long been confined to the moral branch of religion, which is the same in all religions; while in that branch which consists of dogmas, all differ.

Thomas Jefferson
I believe that justice is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society.

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

Thomas Jefferson