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We may consider each generation as a distinct nation,
with a right, by the will of its majority,
to bind themselves, but none to
bind the succeeding generation,
more than the inhabitants of another country.
- Thomas Jefferson
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
- 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
The man who reads nothing at all
is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson
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Do not bite at the bait of pleasure,
till you know there is no hook beneath it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Speeches that are measured by the hour
will die with the hour.
- Thomas Jefferson
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.
The several sects perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
- Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths
to be relied on in a newspaper.
- Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
- 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
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone
I love not to mix with it.
- Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age,
the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- 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
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
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
I find that he is happiest
of whom the world says least, good or bad.
- Thomas Jefferson
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations,
the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
When we get piled upon one another
in large cities, as in Europe,
we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
- Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body, or troubled in mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.
- Thomas Jefferson
I find that the harder I work,
the more luck I seem to have.
- Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness,
the general mind must be strengthened by education.
- 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
Every government degenerates when trusted
to the rulers of the people alone.
The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
- Thomas Jefferson
No government ought to be without censors;
and where the press is free no one ever will.
- Thomas Jefferson
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices,
a rottenness begins in his conduct.
- Thomas Jefferson
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy,
and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
- Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
- Thomas Jefferson
My theory has always been, that if we are to dream,
the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter,
than the gloom of despair.
- 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
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule,
where fifty-one percent of the people
may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people
to retain the right to keep and bear arms is,
as a last resort, to protect themselves
against tyranny in government.
- Thomas Jefferson
The glow of one warm thought
is to me worth more than money.
- Thomas Jefferson
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
- Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
- 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
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
Walking is the best possible exercise.
Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
- Thomas Jefferson
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency
the reputation which carried him into it.
- Thomas Jefferson
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
- 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
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
- Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is in our lives and not our words
that our religion must be read.
- Thomas Jefferson
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects,
and so will continue while the present
order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
- 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
Dependence begets subservience and venality,
suffocates the germ of virtue,
and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
- 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
In matters of style, swim with the current;
in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- Thomas Jefferson
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- 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
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government
results from too much government.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
- Thomas Jefferson
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
- Thomas Jefferson
(also attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Lord Chesterfield)
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny;
when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
- 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
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
- 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
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
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction,
is the first and only object of good government.
- Thomas Jefferson
So confident am I in the intentions,
as well as wisdom, of the government,
that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done,
either cannot, or ought not to be done.
- Thomas Jefferson
We are not to expect to be translated from
despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
- Thomas Jefferson
Only aim to do your duty,
and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
- 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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