Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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No man has greater confidence than I have in the spirit of the people, to a rational extent. Whatever they can, they will.

Thomas Jefferson
It is wonderful to me that old men should not be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress of decay.

Thomas Jefferson
I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and remaining a mere monument of the times which are past.

Thomas Jefferson
Travelling is good for your health and necessary for your amusement.

Thomas Jefferson
Choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson
Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them.

Thomas Jefferson
Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory.

Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is more incumbent on the old than to know when they should get out of the way and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.

Thomas Jefferson
Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights.

Thomas Jefferson
If science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable, as our neighboring savages are.

Thomas Jefferson
I am tired of a life of contention, and of being the personal object for the hatred of every man, who hates the present state of things.

Thomas Jefferson
Yet by such worthless beings is a great nation to be governed and even made to deify their old king because he is only a fool and a maniac, and to forgive and forget his having lost to them a great and flourishing empire.

Thomas Jefferson
If thinking men would have the courage to think for themselves, and to speak what they think, it would be found they do not differ in religious opinions as much as is supposed.

Thomas Jefferson
With all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing, or that ever did exist.

Thomas Jefferson
When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.

Thomas Jefferson
If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform.

Thomas Jefferson
The lamp of war is kindled here, not to be extinguished but by torrents of blood.

Thomas Jefferson
It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.

Thomas Jefferson
There is no King, who, with sufficient force, is not always ready to make himself absolute.

Thomas Jefferson
As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.

Thomas Jefferson
It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations i.e., emancipation of slaves and settlement of the Virginia constitution on a firmer and more permanent basis.

Thomas Jefferson
The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.

Thomas Jefferson
In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.

Thomas Jefferson
How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.

Thomas Jefferson
Those who bear equally the burthens of Government should equally participate of its benefits.

Thomas Jefferson
Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead ofpersuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour.

Thomas Jefferson
In short I must confide in you to take such care of the men under you as an economical householder would of his own family, doingevery thing within himself as far as he can, and calling for as few supplies as possible. The less you depend for supplies from this quarter, the less you will be disappointed.

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
Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.

Thomas Jefferson
I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demigods.

Thomas Jefferson