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The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
- Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all
is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson
I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson
The natural cause of the human mind
is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
- Thomas Jefferson
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Speeches that are measured by the hour
will die with the hour.
- Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age,
the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure,
till you know there is no hook beneath it.
- Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
- Thomas Jefferson
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.
The several sects perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
- 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
Advertisements contain the only truths
to be relied on in a newspaper.
- 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
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
It takes time to persuade men to do even
what is for their own good.
- 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
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations,
the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory,
his imagination sees in every object
only the traits which favor that theory.
- Thomas Jefferson
I find that he is happiest
of whom the world says least, good or bad.
- Thomas Jefferson
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
- 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
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth,
and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
- Thomas Jefferson
An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
- 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
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people ...
They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself.
- Thomas Jefferson
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices,
a rottenness begins in his conduct.
- Thomas Jefferson
Nothing can stop the man with the right
mental attitude from achieving his goal;
nothing on earth can help the man
with the wrong mental attitude.
- Thomas Jefferson
We never repent of having eaten too little.
- Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say
there are twenty gods or no God.
- Thomas Jefferson
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny;
when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shown, that even
under the best forms of government,
those entrusted with power have,
in time, and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny.
- Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,
in a state of civilization,
it expects what never was and never will be.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least,
because its people discipline themselves.
- Thomas Jefferson
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on
does not constitute so strong an attachment
as that from which they draw their gains.
- Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
- Thomas Jefferson
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself,
to resist invasions of it in the case of others:
or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
- Thomas Jefferson
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
- Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body, or troubled in mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is incumbent on every generation
to pay its own debts as it goes.
A principle which if acted on would
save one-half the wars of the world.
- 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
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
- Thomas Jefferson
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
- Thomas Jefferson
Whenever you do a thing,
act as if all the world were watching.
- Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
- Thomas Jefferson
If there is one principle more deeply rooted
in the mind of every American,
it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
- Thomas Jefferson
No government ought to be without censors;
and where the press is free no one ever will.
- Thomas Jefferson
If God is just, I tremble for my country.
- Thomas Jefferson
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness,
the general mind must be strengthened by education.
- Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should
have a government without newspapers,
or newspapers without a government,
I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
- Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty
to yield and government to gain ground.
- Thomas Jefferson
The second office in the government is honorable and easy;
the first is but a splendid misery.
- Thomas Jefferson
There is a natural aristocracy among men.
The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
- Thomas Jefferson
When we get piled upon one another
in large cities, as in Europe,
we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
- Thomas Jefferson
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
- Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas
he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is in our lives and not our words
that our religion must be read.
- Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
- Thomas Jefferson
Determine never to be idle.
No person will have occasion to complain
of the want of time who never loses any.
It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
- Thomas Jefferson
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade,
but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement
the greater part of life is sunshine.
- Thomas Jefferson
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government.
It is always oppressive.
- Thomas Jefferson
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
- 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
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
- 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
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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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