Quotes By Thomas Jefferson

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.

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities.

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.