Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings 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.
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.
you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.
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 dominion which the banking institutions have obtained over the minds of our citizens ... must be broken, or it will break us.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
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.
It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.
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.
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
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.
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.
Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.
The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.
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.
If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed,
The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.
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 do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
It would not be for the public good to have [a majority in Congress of one party] greater [than] two to one.
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.
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.
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
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.