I cannot live without books.
- Thomas Jefferson
I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson 
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
- Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure,
till you know there is no hook beneath it.
- 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
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
The man who reads nothing at all
is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths
to be relied on in a newspaper.
- Thomas Jefferson
Speeches that are measured by the hour
will die with the hour.
- Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age,
the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.
The several sects perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
- Thomas Jefferson
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone
I love not to mix with it.
- Thomas Jefferson
The natural cause of the human mind
is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
- Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
- Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations;
entangling alliances with none.
- 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
I find that he is happiest
of whom the world says least, good or bad.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- 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 moment a person forms a theory,
his imagination sees in every object
only the traits which favor that theory.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least,
because its people discipline themselves.
- 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
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
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
- Thomas Jefferson
Mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed.
- Thomas Jefferson
Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
- Thomas Jefferson
We are not to expect to be translated from
despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
- Thomas Jefferson
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
- Thomas Jefferson
The whole commerce between master and slave
is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions,
the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submissions on the other.
Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
- Thomas Jefferson
When a man assumes a public trust
he should consider himself a public property.
- 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
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government.
It is always oppressive.
- Thomas Jefferson
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
- Thomas Jefferson
(also attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Lord Chesterfield)
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government
results from too much government.
- Thomas Jefferson
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
- Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
- Thomas Jefferson
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny;
when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation,
with a right, by the will of its majority,
to bind themselves, but none to
bind the succeeding generation,
more than the inhabitants of another country.
- Thomas Jefferson
Only aim to do your duty,
and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
- Thomas Jefferson
Information is the currency of democracy.
- Thomas Jefferson
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
- 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
Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
- 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
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule,
where fifty-one percent of the people
may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another
as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done
or what you are going to do.
- Thomas Jefferson
Wisdom I know is social.
She seeks her fellows.
But Beauty is jealous,
and illy bears the presence of a rival.
- Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of resistance to government
is so valuable on certain occasions
that I wish it to be always kept alive.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations,
alliance with none,
should be our motto.
- Thomas Jefferson
I find that the harder I work,
the more luck I seem to have.
- Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
- Thomas Jefferson
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
- 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
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show
by what road it will pass to destruction,
to wit: by consolidation of power first,
and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
- Thomas Jefferson
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on
does not constitute so strong an attachment
as that from which they draw their gains.
- Thomas Jefferson
War is an instrument entirely inefficient
toward redressing wrong;
and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
- Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is the strongest
of which every man feels himself a part.
- Thomas Jefferson
Ignorance is preferable to error,
and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing
than he who believes what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson
My theory has always been, that if we are to dream,
the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter,
than the gloom of despair.
- Thomas Jefferson
I am a great believer in luck
and I find that the harder
I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
- Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to
the inconveniences attending too much liberty
than those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
- Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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