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

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

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