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Quotes by Thomas Jefferson


Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
– Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
– Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
– Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
– Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
– Thomas Jefferson
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
– Thomas Jefferson
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
– Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
– Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
– Thomas Jefferson
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
– Thomas Jefferson
I cannot live without books.
– Thomas Jefferson
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
– Thomas Jefferson
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
– Thomas Jefferson
Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
– Thomas Jefferson
Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.
– Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
– Thomas Jefferson
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
– Thomas Jefferson
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. 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 blindfolded fear.
– Thomas Jefferson
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
– Thomas Jefferson
We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.
– Thomas Jefferson
I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.
– Thomas Jefferson
No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.
– Thomas Jefferson
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
– Thomas Jefferson
I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
– Thomas Jefferson
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.
– Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
– Thomas Jefferson
Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.
– Thomas Jefferson
Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
– Thomas Jefferson
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
– Thomas Jefferson
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
– Thomas Jefferson
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
– Thomas Jefferson
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
– Thomas Jefferson
Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
– Thomas Jefferson
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
– Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson
There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
– Thomas Jefferson
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
– Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
– Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
– Thomas Jefferson
The second office in the government is honorable and easy the first is but a splendid misery.
– Thomas Jefferson
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
– Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
– Thomas Jefferson
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
– Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
– Thomas Jefferson
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
– Thomas Jefferson
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
– Thomas Jefferson
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
– Thomas Jefferson
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
– Thomas Jefferson
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
– Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.
– Thomas Jefferson
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
– Thomas Jefferson
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
– 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.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
– Thomas Jefferson
One man with courage is a majority.
– Thomas Jefferson
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
– Thomas Jefferson
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
– Thomas Jefferson
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
– Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson
Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
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.
– Thomas Jefferson
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice cannot sleep forever.
– Thomas Jefferson
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
– Thomas Jefferson
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
– Thomas Jefferson
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
– 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.
– Thomas Jefferson
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
– Thomas Jefferson
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
– Thomas Jefferson
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
– Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
– Thomas Jefferson
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
– Thomas Jefferson
I have no ambition to govern men it is a painful and thankless office.
– Thomas Jefferson
I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.
– Thomas Jefferson
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
– Thomas Jefferson
I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
– Thomas Jefferson
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
– Thomas Jefferson