Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was an American statesman, philosopher, and founding father. He served as the second U.S. vice president 1797–81 and the third president 1801–09. An intellectual with wide-ranging interests, from music, law, science, painting, and architecture to political philosophy and natural history, he wielded a towering influence on the political and intellectual life of the new nation.

A Democratic-Republican from Virginia, Jefferson played a significant leadership role during the American Revolution. He was the principal drafter of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Subsequently, President George Washington persuaded Jefferson to serve as the first secretary of state (1789–93.)

While president, Jefferson finalized the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and sanctioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06) to survey this vast territory. He was re-elected to a second term, but his poor handling of U.S. shipping and maritime policy made a third term impossible.

After retiring from political office, Jefferson lived in his Monticello estate in Virginia. He was also famously well-read and a great lover of books; the federal government purchased his magnificent personal book collection (6,487 volumes on history, philosophy, and fine arts) after the War of 1812 to form the core of the Library of Congress.

Jefferson was responsible for the chartering of the University of Virginia in 1819. He designed the campus and its buildings and served as the first rector of the university.

Jefferson also wrote numerous pieces of legislation, reports, observations, correspondences, essays, and even books on farming and gardening.

Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, few hours before his rival and friend John Adams died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In his epitaph, composed during the last months of his life, Jefferson codified his legacy: “Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”

Jefferson’s legacy is tainted by his ownership of slaves to support his lavish lifestyle, even if he opposed slavery in principle. He fathered at least one child with a slave.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by 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
Topics: Ignorance, Defects

We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by … reflection.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Bravery, Dreams

I have lived temperately … I double the doctors recommendation of a glass and a half of wine a day and even treble it with a friend.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Wine

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Advertising

Information is the currency of democracy.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government, Information

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.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Family

I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another’s creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, not from our words, that our religion must be judged.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Religion

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government

We must dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Opportunities

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family. public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one’s family and affairs.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Family, Politics

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Speech, Conversation

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Tyranny, Obedience

It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the (Supreme Court) judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: America

One half of our brethren who fight and pay taxes, are excluded, like Helots, from the rights of representation, as if society were instituted for the soil, and not for the men inhabiting it; or one half of these could dispose of the rights and the will of the other half, without their consent.
—Thomas Jefferson

I cannot live without books.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Learning, Wisdom, Literature, Reading, Books

I have never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friend.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Friendship

When any one State in the American Union refuses obedience to the Confederation by which they have bound themselves, the rest have a natural right to compel them to obedience
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Obedience

The care of every man’s soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Soul

Jefferson was against any needless official apparel, but if the gown was to carry, he said: For Heavens sake discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum.
—Thomas Jefferson

The desire to preserve our country from the calamities and ravages of war, by cultivating a disposition, and pursuing a conduct, conciliatory and friendly to all nations, has been sincerely entertained and faithfully followed. It was dictated by the principles of humanity, the precepts of the gospel, and the general wish of our country, and it was not to be doubted that the Society of Friends, with whom it is a religious principle, would sanction it by their support.
—Thomas Jefferson

The only greater evil than separation… is living under a government of discretion
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government

The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Walking, Health

The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.
—Thomas Jefferson

The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.
—Thomas Jefferson

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Work

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Atheism

Victory and defeat are each of the same price.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Victory, Defeat

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