Thomas Jefferson quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Thomas Jefferson on Wise Famous Quotes.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

Above all I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to so they won't forget the basic principles of freedom.

Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give
you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

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

The dominion which the banking institutions have obtained over the minds of our citizens ... must be broken, or it will break us.

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

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

This is the fourth ...

Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to the truth.

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

The cement of this union is in the heart blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis.

Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself.

The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.

Those are governed best who are governed least.

The only way to win money out of a casino is to own one.

It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.

It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.

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

I have lived temperately ... I double the doctor's recommendation of a glass and a half wine each day and even treble it with a friend.

Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.

Political interest [can] never be separated in the long run from moral right.

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

Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.

The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.

I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.

The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government in all places where they may lawfully go.

If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.

Wine brightens the life and thinking of anyone

It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

The mass of the citizens is the safest depositary of their own rights.

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.

Resisting tyranny is obeying God

The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.

All power is inherent in the people.

Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.

A good neighbor is a very desireable thing.

The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies, and falsehoods.

As we advance in life these things fall off one by one , and I suspect we are left with only Homer and Virgil, perhaps with only Homer alone.

I can't live without books

Those who bear equally the burthens of Government should equally participate of its benefits.

Health is worth more than learning.

Without society, and a society to our taste, men are never contented.

Every man has a commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

Dependence leads to subservience.

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

Everything yields to diligence

no people can be both ignorant and free.

If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed,

Music ... This is the favorite passion of my soul.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

Our ancestors ... were laborers, not lawyers.

Without virtue, happiness cannot be.

I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.

I firmly believe in luck. And I noticed: the more I work, the luckier I become.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.

Opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view.

Anarchy [is] necessarily consequent to inefficiency.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

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

Good wine is a necessity of life for me.

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

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

Don't spend your money till you have it.

Some other natural rights ... [have] not yet entered into any declaration of rights.

Question boldly even the existence of God.

The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible.

No man has greater confidence than I have in the spirit of the people, to a rational extent. Whatever they can, they will.

Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

The field of knolege is the common property of all mankind

ONLY a government that is AFRAID of its citizens tries to control them.

I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Ministers and merchants love nobody.

If Americans desire to be both ignorant and free, they want what never has been and what never will be.

I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.

Revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid cheerfully by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts.

Law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

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

To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language.

I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

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

The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Every gentleman plays billiards, but someone who plays billiards too well, is no gentleman.

Newspapers ... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.