Thomas Jefferson Quotes

“A government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns, not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city or small township, but by representatives chosen by himself and responsible to him at short periods.”

“Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing ... this enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to it's consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man.”

“But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.”

“Victory and defeat are each of the same price.”

“We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self - government.”

“To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse.”

“There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.”

“The evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come.”

“I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

“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.”

“no one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in it's effect towards supporting free & good government.”

“Taste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.”

“Our wish is that...[there be] maintained that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.”

“The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. Let it be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ.”

“[My] pillar of support through life.... I can say conscientiously that I do not know in the world a man of purer integrity, more dispassionate, disinterested, and devoted to genuine Republicanism; nor could I in the whole scope of America and Europe point out an abler head.”

“No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.”

“While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.”

“The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep he waters pure.”

“The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.”

“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.”

“No other depositories of power [but the people themselves] have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge.”

“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”

“This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.”

“A government held together by the bands of reason only, requires much compromise of opinion.”

“Although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice.”