Quotes By Thomas Jefferson

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

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.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

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.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

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

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

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.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

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

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.