Famous Quotes

Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

• I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
• I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
• I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
• I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
• I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice cannot sleep forever.
• I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
• If God is just, I tremble for my country.
• If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
• Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
• In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
• In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
• It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
• It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
• It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
• It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
• It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
• It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
• It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
• Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
• Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
• My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
• My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
• My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
• Never spend your money before you have earned it.
• No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.
• Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
• Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
• One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
• One man with courage is a majority.
• One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
• Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
• Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.