Thomas Jefferson Quotes

“With all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing, or that ever did exist.”

“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.”

“Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.”

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association-the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

“I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.”

“The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.”

“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

“Our ancestors ... were laborers, not lawyers.”

“A cold-blooded, calculation, unprincipled, usurper, without a virtue, no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.”

“The moral sense is the first excellence of well-organized man.”

“[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people.”

“May it be to the world... to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”

“His system of morality was the most benevolent and sublime probably that has been ever taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any of the ancient philosophers... He was the most innocent, the most benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that ever has been exhibited to man.”

“I pledge undying hostility to any government restrictions on the free minds of the people.”

“The earth belongs to the living. No man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the payment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the use of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living. No generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.”

“Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety.”

“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”

“A little revolution is a good thing.”

“1.Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 2.Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 3.Never spend your money before you have it. 4.Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. 5.Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. 6.We never repent of having eaten too little. 7.Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 8.How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened. 9.Take things always by their smooth handle. 10.When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.”

“The movements of nature are in a never ending circle. The animal species which has once been put into a train of motion, is still probably moving in that train. For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another and another might be lost, till this whole system of things should evanish by piece-meal; a conclusion not warranted by the local disappearance of one or two species of animals, and opposed by the thousands and thousands of instances of the renovating power constantly exercised by nature for the reproduction of all her subjects, animal, vegetable, and mineral.”

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

“Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.”

“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”

“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.”