Quotes By Thomas Jefferson

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

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.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

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.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

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.

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.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.

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

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

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.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

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

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

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

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

If God is just, I tremble for my country.

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

He who knows best knows how little he knows.