Thomas Jefferson Quotes

994 Sourced Quotes

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.

Thomas Jefferson
In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

Thomas Jefferson
I could more easily believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from the heaven.

Thomas Jefferson
The best (remedy) I can devise would be to give future commissions to (federal) judges for six years with a re-appointability by the President with the approbation of both houses. If this would not be independence enough, I know not what would be...

Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is so engaging as the little domestic cares into which you appear to be entering, and as to reading it is useful for onlyfilling up the chinks of more useful and healthy occupations.

Thomas Jefferson
The fantastical idea of virtue and the public good being a sufficient security to the state against the commission of crimes, which you say you have heard insisted on by some, I assure you was never mine.

Thomas Jefferson
Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.

Thomas Jefferson
Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.

Thomas Jefferson
Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is in their interest to go to war.

Thomas Jefferson
A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.

Thomas Jefferson
Sensibility of mind is indeed the parent of every virtue, but it is the parent of much misery, too.

Thomas Jefferson
A country whose buildings are of wood, can never increase in its improvements to any considerable degree.... Whereas when buildings are of durable materials, every new edifice is an actual and permanent acquisition to the state, adding to its value as well as to its ornament.

Thomas Jefferson
Perfection in wisdom, as well as in integrity, is neither required nor expected in these agents (public servants). It belongs not to man. The wise know too well their weaknesses to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.

Thomas Jefferson
The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.

Thomas Jefferson
They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.

Thomas Jefferson
Is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance?...the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless.

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
It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.

Thomas Jefferson
We do not mean to count or weigh our contributions by any standard other than that of our abilities.

Thomas Jefferson
We are sensible of the duty and expediency of submitting our opinions to the will of the majority, and can wait with patience till they get right if they happen to be at any time wrong.

Thomas Jefferson
We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.

Thomas Jefferson
The days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning.

Thomas Jefferson
The tumults in America I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here in Europe.

Thomas Jefferson
When you are doubting whether a thing is worth the trouble of going to see, recollect that you will never again be so near it. You may repent not having seen it, but you can never repent having seen it.

Thomas Jefferson
To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government
as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.

Thomas Jefferson
No man complains of his neighbor for ill management of his affairs, for an error in sowing his land, or marrying his daughter, for consuming his substance in taverns... in all these he has liberty; but if he does not frequent the church, or then conform in ceremonies, there is an immediate uproar.

Thomas Jefferson
When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the means of producing some good.

Thomas Jefferson
The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error.

Thomas Jefferson
If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.

Thomas Jefferson
I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind.

Thomas Jefferson