Thomas Jefferson Quotes on Principle (18 Quotes)


    We are endeavoring, too, to reduce the government to the practice of a rigorous economy, to avoid burdening the people, and arming the magistrate with patronage of money, which might be used to corrupt and undermine the principles of our government

    The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion of principle but that of gain

    All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

    Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

    No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as of duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only.


    But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

    Every honest man will suppose honest acts to flow from honest principles, and the rogues may rail without intermission.

    Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

    It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

    In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

    In matters of principle, stand like a rock. In matters of taste, swim with the current.

    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 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.

    My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave the consequences to Him who has the disposal of them

    Money, not morality, is the principle of commerce and commercial nations

    The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.

    On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

    I sincerely believe ... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.


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