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The second office in the government is honorable and easy;
the first is but a splendid misery.
- Thomas Jefferson
The natural cause of the human mind
is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
- Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age,
the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blind-folded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson
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I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all
is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
- Thomas Jefferson
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone
I love not to mix with it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Speeches that are measured by the hour
will die with the hour.
- Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure,
till you know there is no hook beneath it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.
The several sects perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
- Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
- Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths
to be relied on in a newspaper.
- Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted
with the government of himself.
Can he, then be trusted with the government of others?
Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?
Let history answer this question.
- Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations;
entangling alliances with none.
- Thomas Jefferson
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations,
the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
It takes time to persuade men to do even
what is for their own good.
- Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson
I find that he is happiest
of whom the world says least, good or bad.
- Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory,
his imagination sees in every object
only the traits which favor that theory.
- Thomas Jefferson
We are not afraid to follow truth
wherever it may lead,
nor to tolerate any error
so long as reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
- Thomas Jefferson
The good opinion of mankind,
like the lever of Archimedes,
with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
- Thomas Jefferson
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation,
which are as necessary as reading.
I will rather say more necessary
because health is worth more than learning.
- Thomas Jefferson
As our enemies have found, we can reason like men,
so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
- Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
- Thomas Jefferson
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
- Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are?
Don't ask. Act!
Action will delineate and define you.
- Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
- Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another
as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
- Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans
if they can prevent the government
from wasting the labors of the people
under the pretense of taking care of them.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
- Thomas Jefferson
In matters of style, swim with the current;
in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- Thomas Jefferson
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
- Thomas Jefferson
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
- Thomas Jefferson
Errors of opinion may be tolerated
where reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed.
- Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism
to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is the strongest
of which every man feels himself a part.
- Thomas Jefferson
Every citizen should be a soldier.
This was the case with the Greeks and Romans,
and must be that of every free state.
- Thomas Jefferson
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government.
It is always oppressive.
- Thomas Jefferson
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.
- Thomas Jefferson
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
- Thomas Jefferson
When angry, count to ten before you speak.
If very angry, count to one hundred.
- Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body, or troubled in mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent
and unalienable rights of man.
- Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas
he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have no fear that the result of our experiment
will be that men may be trusted to
govern themselves without a master.
- Thomas Jefferson
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance
or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
- Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
- Thomas Jefferson
I am a great believer in luck
and I find that the harder
I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say
there are twenty gods or no God.
- Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally,
and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind
will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
- Thomas Jefferson
We never repent of having eaten too little.
- Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so,
a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
- Thomas Jefferson
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government
results from too much government.
- Thomas Jefferson
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
- Thomas Jefferson
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
- Thomas Jefferson
No government ought to be without censors;
and where the press is free no one ever will.
- Thomas Jefferson
The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which
it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters.
- Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to
the inconveniences attending too much liberty
than those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
We are not to expect to be translated from
despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
- Thomas Jefferson
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth,
and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
- Thomas Jefferson
Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
- Thomas Jefferson
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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