Thomas Jefferson Quotes (427 Quotes)

A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution (the University of Virginia)

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

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

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

No doubt President Jefferson was brilliant - probably the key author of the American constitution. But the PNP and Jamaica have our own Thomas Jefferson ... former leader and Premier Norman Washington Manley. Indeed Norman Washington Manley was better - note the word.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

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

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

No one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in its effect towards supporting free and good government.

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.

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.

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

I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.

Tranquility is the old man's milk.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

The art of life is the art of avoiding pain and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

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

When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.

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

If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained Those by death are few by resignations, none. Usually quoted Few die and none resign.

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

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

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.

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I.

No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.

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.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

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

The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words.

The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

One man with courage is a majority.

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.

I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor

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.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents for with these it would belong to the first class.

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

Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

The rights of human nature are deeply wounded by this infamous practice of slavery.

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

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

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.