Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.
The several sects perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
- Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths
to be relied on in a newspaper.
- Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure,
till you know there is no hook beneath it.
- Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age,
the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all
is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson
The natural cause of the human mind
is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
- Thomas Jefferson
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
- Thomas Jefferson
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 blind-folded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
- Thomas Jefferson
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone
I love not to mix with it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Speeches that are measured by the hour
will die with the hour.
- Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations;
entangling alliances with none.
- Thomas Jefferson
I find that he is happiest
of whom the world says least, good or bad.
- Thomas Jefferson
It takes time to persuade men to do even
what is for their own good.
- Thomas Jefferson
We are not afraid to follow truth
wherever it may lead,
nor to tolerate any error
so long as reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory,
his imagination sees in every object
only the traits which favor that theory.
- Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations,
the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which
it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters.
- Thomas Jefferson
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade,
but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement
the greater part of life is sunshine.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas
he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
- Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
- Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty
to yield and government to gain ground.
- Thomas Jefferson
If God is just, I tremble for my country.
- Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say
there are twenty gods or no God.
- Thomas Jefferson
We never repent of having eaten too little.
- Thomas Jefferson
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us,
that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
- Thomas Jefferson
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
- Thomas Jefferson
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
- Thomas Jefferson
Nothing can stop the man with the right
mental attitude from achieving his goal;
nothing on earth can help the man
with the wrong mental attitude.
- Thomas Jefferson
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
- Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle,
that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail,
that will to be rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights,
which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson
When we get piled upon one another
in large cities, as in Europe,
we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
- Thomas Jefferson
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
- Thomas Jefferson
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
- Thomas Jefferson
No government ought to be without censors;
and where the press is free no one ever will.
- Thomas Jefferson
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth,
and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
- Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another
as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
Truth is certainly a branch of morality
and a very important one to society.
- Thomas Jefferson
If there is one principle more deeply rooted
in the mind of every American,
it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America,
the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry,
and of criminal inquiry too.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency
the reputation which carried him into it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done
or what you are going to do.
- Thomas Jefferson
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least,
because its people discipline themselves.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,
in a state of civilization,
it expects what never was and never will be.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government,
which shall leave men free to regulate
their own pursuits of industry and improvement,
and shall not take from the mouth
of labor and the bread it has earned -
this is the sum of good government.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is the strongest
of which every man feels himself a part.
- Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Only aim to do your duty,
and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
- Thomas Jefferson
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government.
It is always oppressive.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
How much pain they have cost us,
the evils which have never happened.
- 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.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
- Thomas Jefferson
War is an instrument entirely inefficient
toward redressing wrong;
and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson (from a letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816)
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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