Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end.

Thomas Jefferson
The whole body of the nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and executive power for itself. The inconvenience of meeting to exercise these powers in person, and their inaptitude to exercise them, induce them to appoint special organs to declare their legislative will, to judge and to execute it. It is the will of the nation which makes the law obligatory.

Thomas Jefferson
It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.

Thomas Jefferson
I feel a much greater interest in knowing what has passed two or three thousand years ago, than in what is now passing. I read nothing, therefore, but of the heroes of Troy,... of Pompey and Caesar, and of Augustus too.

Thomas Jefferson
I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired. Though to be candid, there are some who have too much good sense to esteem such monkey-like animals as these, in whose formation, as the saying is, the tailors and barbers go halves with God Almighty.

Thomas Jefferson
One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.

Thomas Jefferson
An hereditary aristocracy... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.

Thomas Jefferson
I leave the world and its affairs to the young and energetic, and resign myself to their care, of whom I have endeavored to take care when young.

Thomas Jefferson
It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.

Thomas Jefferson
I am already sensible of decay in the power of walking, and find my memory not so faithful as it used to be. This may be partly owing to the incessant current of new matter flowing constantly through it; but I ascribe to years their share in it also.

Thomas Jefferson
The greatest honor of a man is in doing good to his fellow men, not in destroying them.

Thomas Jefferson
The religion of Jesus is founded in the Unity of God, and this principle chiefly gave it triumph over the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged. Thinking men of all nations rallied readily to the doctrine of one only God, and embraced it with the pure-morals which Jesus inculcated.

Thomas Jefferson
Printers shall be liable to legal prosecution for printing and publishing false facts injurious to the party prosecuting: but they shall be under no other restraint.

Thomas Jefferson
Difficulties indeed sometimes arise; but common sense and honest intentions will generally steer through them.

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
The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.

Thomas Jefferson
Every man cannot have his way in all things. If his opinion prevails at some times, he should acquiesce on seeing that of others preponderate at other times. Without this mutual disposition we are disjointed individuals, but not a society.

Thomas Jefferson
My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty; to avoid attracting notice, and to keep my name out of the newspapers.

Thomas Jefferson
The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous.

Thomas Jefferson
Our ancient laws expressly declare that those who are but delegates themselves shall not delegate to others powers which require judgment and integrity in their exercise.

Thomas Jefferson
With those who wish to think amiss of me, I have learnt to be perfectly indifferent: but where I know a mind to be ingenuous, andto need only truth to set it to rights, I cannot be as passive.

Thomas Jefferson
A good cause is often injured more by ill-timed efforts of its friends than by the arguments of its enemies. Persuasion, perseverance and patience are the best advocates on questions depending on the will of others.

Thomas Jefferson
In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.

Thomas Jefferson
I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people directly.

Thomas Jefferson
It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.

Thomas Jefferson
Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country.

Thomas Jefferson
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

Thomas Jefferson
Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.

Thomas Jefferson
I am myself an empiric in natural philosophy, suffering my faith to go no further than my facts. I am pleased, however, to see the efforts of hypothetical speculation, because by the collisions of different hypotheses, truth may be elicited and science advanced in the end.

Thomas Jefferson
It is well known, that on the Ohio, and in many parts of America further north, tusks, grinders, and skeletons of unparalleled magnitude are found in great numbers, some lying on the surface of the earth, and some a little below it... But to whatever animal we ascribe these remains, it is certain that such a one has existed in America, and that it has been the largest of all terrestrial beings.

Thomas Jefferson