Inspiring Quotes by Thomas Jefferson - Page 2

Click here to get back to Thomas Jefferson

"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state"

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

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

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

"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"

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital"

"Be polite to all, but intimate with few"

"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man"

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

"One man with courage is a majority"

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

"The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper"

"That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part"

"Taste cannot be controlled by law"

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

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

"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none"

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

"There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me"

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty"

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force"

"I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive"

"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"

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

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory"

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

"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?"

"The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism"

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country"

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

"In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also"

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear"

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

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

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

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

"Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism"

"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"

"Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast"

"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"

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion"

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter"

"We never repent of having eaten too little"

"Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society"

"The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world"

"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"

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question"

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

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

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

Page 2 of 3