Thomas Jefferson Quotes on Man (41 Quotes)

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing . . . this enterprise is for the young for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to it's consummation. it shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man.

Offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

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.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.

The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being

The foundation on which all our constitution are built is the natural equality of man

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens

Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author.

In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive fights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

The efforts of certain Christian factions to cast themselves as the inheritors of America's Judaeo-Christian tradition find little support in the embarrassing heterodoxy of this Founding Father 'But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separable as the diamond from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man outlines which it is lamentable he did not live to fill up. . . . The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object. . . .'

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.

The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

In every country where man is free to think and to speak, difference of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason but these differences, when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently, and leaving our horizon more bright and serene.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical.

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

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

Traveling makes a man wiser, but less happy.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad ... freedom of religion freedom of the press freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny

Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.