The Best Thomas Jefferson quotes

The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man. — Thomas Jefferson

The People] are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. — Thomas Jefferson

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed. — Thomas Jefferson

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but the guarrantors of only our own. — Thomas Jefferson

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave. — Thomas Jefferson

Our liberty depends on freedom of the press. — Thomas Jefferson

Our attachment to no nation on earth should supplant our attachment to liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

The last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. — Thomas Jefferson

Light and liberty go together. — Thomas Jefferson

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

Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety. — Thomas Jefferson

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost. — Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object. — Thomas Jefferson

If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence. — Thomas Jefferson

All the States but our own are sensible that knowlege is power. — Thomas Jefferson

All power is inherent in the people. — Thomas Jefferson

The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers. — Thomas Jefferson

One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it. — Thomas Jefferson

Power is not alluring to pure minds. — Thomas Jefferson

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves. — 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

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. — Thomas Jefferson

Unmerited abuse wounds, while unmerited praise has not the power to heal. — Thomas Jefferson

To take a single step beyond the text would be to take possession of a boundless field of power. — Thomas Jefferson

Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. — Thomas Jefferson

An honest mAn cAn feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. — Thomas Jefferson

I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check. — John Adams

When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it. — Thomas Jefferson

The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions. — Thomas Jefferson

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson

A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order. — Thomas Jefferson

Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. — Thomas Jefferson

The power of making war often prevents it. — Thomas Jefferson

A mind always employed is always happy. — Thomas Jefferson

Sensibility of mind is indeed the parent of every virtue, but it is the parent of much misery, too. — Thomas Jefferson

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man. — Thomas Jefferson

Truth between candid minds can never do harm. — Thomas Jefferson

I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostIlIty agaInst every form of tyranny over the mInd of man. — Thomas Jefferson

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity. — Thomas Jefferson

If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong. — Thomas Jefferson

The most uninformed mind with a healthy body is happier than the wisest valetudinarian. — Thomas Jefferson

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. — Thomas Jefferson

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism. — Thomas Jefferson

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind. — Thomas Jefferson

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. — Thomas Jefferson

I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances. — Thomas Jefferson

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind. — Thomas Jefferson

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education. — Thomas Jefferson

The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds. — Thomas Jefferson

It is wonderful to me that old men should not be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress of decay. — Thomas Jefferson

Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise. — Thomas Jefferson

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the general progress of the human mind. — Thomas Jefferson

The bulk of mankind are schoolboys through life. — Thomas Jefferson

Good wine is a necessity of life for me. — Thomas Jefferson

One war, such as that of our Revolution, is enough for one life. — Thomas Jefferson

Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life. — Thomas Jefferson

The fortune of our lives depends on employing well the short period of our youth. — Thomas Jefferson

The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all. — Thomas Jefferson

If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off. — Thomas Jefferson

We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour. — Thomas Jefferson

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. — Thomas Jefferson

Do not neglect your music. It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you. — Thomas Jefferson

The art of life is the art of avoiding pain. — Thomas Jefferson

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

The Giver of life gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness. — Thomas Jefferson

A room without books is like a life without meaning. — Thomas Jefferson

The happiest hours of my life have been spent in the flow of affection among friends. — Thomas Jefferson

Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely gives him comfortable subsistence. — Thomas Jefferson

The worst day in a man’s life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing. — Thomas Jefferson

All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family. — Thomas Jefferson

We might have been a free and great people together. — Thomas Jefferson

A free government is of all others the most energetic. — Thomas Jefferson

Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be. — Thomas Jefferson

Those who wish to be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be. — Thomas Jefferson

Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. — Thomas Jefferson

Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government. — Thomas Jefferson

If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press. — 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

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

The merchants will manage [commerce] the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves. — Thomas Jefferson

No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, No one ever will. — Thomas Jefferson

I pledge undying hostility to any government restrictions on the free minds of the people. — Thomas Jefferson

Erecting the ‘wall of separation between church and state’… is absolutely essential in a free society. — Thomas Jefferson

The only security of all is in a free press. — Thomas Jefferson

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. — Thomas Jefferson

Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion. — Thomas Jefferson

Although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice. — Thomas Jefferson

When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public. — Thomas Jefferson

An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will. — Thomas Jefferson

Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose. — Thomas Jefferson

Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree. — Thomas Jefferson

The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression. — Thomas Jefferson

It would not be for the public good to have [a majority in Congress of one party] greater [than] two to one. — Thomas Jefferson

A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive. — Thomas Jefferson

Honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality. — Thomas Jefferson

The fantastical idea of virtue and the public good being a sufficient security to the state against the commission of crimes, which you say you have heard insisted on by some, I assure you was never mine. — Thomas Jefferson

It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. — Thomas Jefferson

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property. — Thomas Jefferson

Public offices were not made for private convenience. — Thomas Jefferson

If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market. — Thomas Jefferson

I have the consolatIon of havIng added nothIng to my prIvate fortune durIng my publIc servIce, and of retIrIng wIth hands clean as they are empty. — Thomas Jefferson

There is no justification for taking away individuals’ freedom in the guise of public safety. — Thomas Jefferson

Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us. — Thomas Jefferson

The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor I. — Thomas Jefferson

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism. — Thomas Jefferson

No country and no people can be free and ignorant at the same time. — Thomas Jefferson

Agriculture is at the same time the most tranquil, healthy, and independent occupation. — Thomas Jefferson

Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads. — Thomas Jefferson

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good. — Thomas Jefferson

Should things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights. — Thomas Jefferson

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses. — Thomas Jefferson

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time. — Thomas Jefferson

The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time. — Thomas Jefferson

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time. — Thomas Jefferson

The god who gave us life, gave us liberty at The same time. — Thomas Jefferson

The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruption’s of time and party, its members would become despots. — Thomas Jefferson

F]alsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. — Thomas Jefferson

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. — Thomas Jefferson

It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. — Thomas Jefferson

The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. — Thomas Jefferson

The reward of esteem, respect and gratitude [is] due to those who devote their time and efforts to render the youths of every successive age fit governors for the next. — Thomas Jefferson

Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree. — Thomas Jefferson

When habit has strengthened our sense of duties, they leave us no time for other things; but when young we neglect them and this gives us time for anything. — Thomas Jefferson