Thomas Jefferson Quotes

994 Sourced Quotes

While prudence will endeavor to avoid this issue of war, bravery will prepare to meet it.

Thomas Jefferson
I hope the terms of Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire, forever disappear from among us... I wish that of Mr. would follow them.

Thomas Jefferson
The relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being and the most incumbent on his study and investigation.

Thomas Jefferson
We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce.

Thomas Jefferson
No man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him.

Thomas Jefferson
To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.' For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union.

Thomas Jefferson
When we consider how much climate contributes to the happiness of our condition, by the fine sensation it excites, and the productions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident of birth in such a one as that of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson
I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible to civilization. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that the reformation must be worked.

Thomas Jefferson
We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government, as far as they are capable of exercising it, and that this is the only way to ensure a long continued and honest administration of its powers.

Thomas Jefferson
The physician is happy in the attachment of the families in which he practices. All think he has saved one of them, and he finds himself everywhere a welcome guest, a home in every house.

Thomas Jefferson
The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.

Thomas Jefferson
In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.

Thomas Jefferson
I have now the gloomy prospect of retiring from office loaded with serious debts, which will materially affect the tranquility of my retirement.

Thomas Jefferson
While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?

Thomas Jefferson
It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.

Thomas Jefferson
It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.

Thomas Jefferson
Idleness begets ennui, ennui the hypochondriac, and that a diseased body. No laborious person was ever yet hysterical.

Thomas Jefferson
Nothing can be believed but what one sees, or has from an eye witness.

Thomas Jefferson
When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe and precise.

Thomas Jefferson
I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in their times.

Thomas Jefferson
I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away.

Thomas Jefferson
Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.

Thomas Jefferson
The uniform tenor of a man's life furnishes better evidence of what he has said or done on any particular occasion than the word of any enemy.

Thomas Jefferson
I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gaycapital [Paris].

Thomas Jefferson
We see the wisdom of Solon's remark, that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear.

Thomas Jefferson
That this privilege of giving or of withholding our monies is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative, which if left altogether without control may be exercised to our great oppression; and all history shews how efficacious is its intercession for redress of grievances and re-establishment of rights, and how improvident would be the surrender of so powerful a mediator

Thomas Jefferson
It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate.

Thomas Jefferson
I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.

Thomas Jefferson
On the subject of the history of the American Revolution, you ask who shall write it? Who can write it? And who will ever be able to write it? Nobody, except merely its external facts... all its councils, designs and discussions having been conducted by Congress [behind] closed doors - and no members, as far as I know, having even made notes of them. These, which are the life and soul of history, must forever be unknown.

Thomas Jefferson
The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government in all places where they may lawfully go.

Thomas Jefferson