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Thomas Jefferson
372 quotes
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1764 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vol. 1 Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law (1764) Broken link. Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, p. …
“A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1771 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Robert Skipwith (3 August 1771) ; also in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 4, p. 239
“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1774 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774); The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 1, p. 211
“Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1774 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
“All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Draft Constitution for Virginia (June 1776)
“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Draft Constitution for Virginia (June 1776) This quote often appears with the parenthetical omitted and with the spurious extension, "The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as…
“Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known & seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson : 1816–1826 (1899) edited by Paul Leicester Ford, v. 2, p. 102
“In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2, p. 256
“Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. I may grow rich by art I am compelled to follow, I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment, but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve & abhor.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Notes on Religion (October 1776), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 2, p. 266
“History has informed us that bodies of men, as well as individuals, are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are extraordinary situations which require extraordinary interposition. An exasperated people, who feel that they possess power, are not easily restrained within limits strictly regular.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From the nature and purpose of civil institutions, all the lands within the limits which any particular society has circumscribed around itself are assumed by that society, and subject to their allotment only. This may be done by themselves, assembled collectively, or by their legislature, to whom they may have delegated sovereign authority; and if they are alloted in neither of these ways, each individual of the society may appropriate to himself such lands as he finds vacant, and occupancy will give him title.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art. To give praise which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. In every stage of these repressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, our repreated petitions have been answered only by repreated injury.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]f the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour?”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1782 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1782, reported in Henry Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux, Historical Sketches of Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of George III (1845), Vol. II, p. 62.
“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands. As long therefore as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans, or any thing else. But our citizens will find employment in this line till their numbers, and of course their productions, become too great for the demand both internal and foreign.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1785 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to John Jay (23 August 1785); published in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (1953), edited by Julian P. Boyd, vol. 8, p. 426
“In the North they are cool sober laborious persevering independent jealous of their own liberties, and just to those of others interested chicaning superstitious and hypocritical in their religion In the South they are fiery voluptuary indolent unsteady independent zealous for their own liberties, but trampling on those of others. generous candid without attachment or pretensions to any religion but that of the heart.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1785 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to François-Jean de Chastellux (September 2, 1785). archives.gov Also quoted in Thomas Jefferson, Writings, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (1984), p. 827
“I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property..[a] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1785 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to James Madison (28 October 1785)
“It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1786 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to George Washington (4 January 1786)
“What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment, be deaf to all those motives whose powers supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1786 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Jean Nicholas Demeunier (24 January 1786) Bergh 17:103
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1786 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 January 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh 18:ii
“The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us....”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1786 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Benjamin Hawkins (13 August 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 5:390
“The policy of American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to M. L'Hommande, (1787), as quoted in The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (1900), edited by John P. Foley, p. 500
“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and 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. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (16 January 1787) Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 6:57
“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (16 January 1787)
“I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, Paris, (16 January 1787)
“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.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to James Madison (30 January 1787); referring to Shays' Rebellion Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 6:65
“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Abigail Smith Adams from Paris while a Minister to France (22 February 1787), referring to Shay's Rebellion. "Jefferson's Service to the New Nation," Library of Congress
“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. Could the contrary of this be proved, I should conclude either that there is no god, or that he is a malevolent being.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to David Hartley (2 July 1787)
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to James Madison (20 December 1787), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. VI, p. 392.
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Alexander Donald (7 February 1788)
“Paper is poverty,... it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (27 May 1788) ME 7:36
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Edward Carrington, Paris (27 May 1788)
“Architecture worth great attention. As we double our numbers every 20 years we must double our houses. Besides we build of such perishable materials that one half of our houses must be rebuilt in every space of 20 years. So that in that term, houses are to be built for three fourths of our inhabitants. It is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hints to Americans travelling in Europe, letter to John Rutledge, Jr. (June 19, 1788); in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (1956), vol. 13, p. 269
“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter From Thomas Jefferson to the Rev. James Madison, 19 July 1788
“I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new Constitution by nine States. It is a good canvas, on which some strokes only want retouching. What these are, I think are sufficiently manifested by the general voice from north to south, which calls for a bill of rights.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1788 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to James Madison (July 31, 1788); reported in Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volumes 1-2 (1829), p. 343
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1789 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Richard Price (8 January 1789)
“I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1789 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to James Madison (6 September 1789) ME 7:455, Papers 15:393
“But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) first seen 1789 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to James Madison (6 September 1789) ME 7:455, Papers 15:393
“We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace... we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe the Indian then to be in body and mind equal to the white man.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your favor of July 2. came duly to hand. The concern you therein express as to the effect of your pamphlet in America, induces me to trouble you with some observations on that subject.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Benjamin Wade speech about Jefferson's letter about Price's work Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution as quoted in the Congressional Record, 1854, pp. 312-313
“As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. Never think of taking a book with you.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With respect to modern languages, French, as I have before observed, is indispensible. Next to this the Spanish is most important to an American. Our connection with Spain is already important and will become daily more so. Besides this the antient part of American history is written chiefly in Spanish.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) said by 1826 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source