Famous Quotes

Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

• 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.
• Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
• Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
• Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.
• Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
• Power is not alluring to pure minds.
• Question with boldness even the existence of a God because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
• So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
• Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
• That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
• The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
• The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
• The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
• The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
• The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
• The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
• The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
• The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
• The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
• The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
• The second office in the government is honorable and easy the first is but a splendid misery.
• The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
• The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
• There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
• There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
• Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
• To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
• Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
• Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
• War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.