Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Honesty
The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government
I prefer to be remembered for what I have done for others, not what others have done for me.
—Thomas Jefferson
Power is not alluring to pure minds
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Power
The most valuable of all talents is never using two words when one will do.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Talent, Meeting, Brevity, Words
I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Science, Fight, Miscellaneous, Revolution, Medicine
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
Topics: The Military
The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Affection
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Equality
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Liberty
The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation; I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the voice of modern oratory.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Nation
What has destroyed liberty and the rights of men in every government that has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating of all cares and powers into one body.
—Thomas Jefferson
I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Opinions
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Democracy, Welfare
The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Walking, Health
Never into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Arguments
The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These, covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching, successively, every article of property and produce.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Taxes
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
—Thomas Jefferson
All authority belongs to the people
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Authority, One liners
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
Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Flattery
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Freedom
The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government
The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: America
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
But though I am an old man, I am but a young gardener.
—Thomas Jefferson
Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Morality, Morals
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Friends, Friendship
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Health, Exercise
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Hope, General
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- George Washington American Head of State
- John Adams American Head of State
- John Quincy Adams American Head of State
- John Marshall American Judge
- James Madison American Statesman, President
- Abraham Lincoln American Head of State
- Andrew Jackson American Head of State
- James A. Garfield American Head of State
- William McKinley American Head of State
- Hillary Rodham Clinton American Head of State
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