All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
– Thomas Jefferson
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
– Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
– Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
– Thomas Jefferson
Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
– Thomas Jefferson
A government afraid of its citizens is a democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny.
– Thomas Jefferson
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
– Thomas Jefferson
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
– Thomas Jefferson
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
On matters of style, swim with the current; on matters of principle, stand like a rock.
– Thomas Jefferson
I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
– Thomas Jefferson
Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
– Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.
– Thomas Jefferson
An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
– Thomas Jefferson
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
– Thomas Jefferson
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
– Thomas Jefferson
The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is a part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate.
– 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
Paper is poverty… it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.
– Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my
pocket nor breaks my leg.
– Thomas Jefferson
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves;
and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education.
This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
– Thomas Jefferson
Experience has 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
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
Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to
his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.
– Thomas Jefferson
A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.
– 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
One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
– Thomas Jefferson
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the
happier for it.
– Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and
unruffled under all circumstances.
– Thomas Jefferson
If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never
done.
– Thomas Jefferson
The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is
wrong.
– Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
– Thomas Jefferson
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
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work
and give to those who would not.
– Thomas Jefferson
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
– Thomas Jefferson
Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result
always being the same. One will always lead to the other.
– Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
– Thomas Jefferson
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its
free expression should be our first object.
– Thomas Jefferson
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
– Thomas Jefferson
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
– Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to
himself from the exercise of power over others.
– Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting
the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
– 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 art of life is the art of avoiding pain.
– Thomas Jefferson
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
– Thomas Jefferson
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the
bosom of my family.
– Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but
newspapers.
– Thomas Jefferson
Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.
– Thomas Jefferson
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
– Thomas Jefferson
A lottery is a salutary instrument and a tax… laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those
who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize.
– Thomas Jefferson
If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?
– Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have it.
– Thomas Jefferson
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and
that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but
swindling futurity on a large scale.
– Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
– Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those
attending too small a degree of it.
– Thomas Jefferson
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much
government.
– Thomas Jefferson
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a
benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.
– Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be
always kept alive.
– Thomas Jefferson
A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not an article for mere
consumption, but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life,
it is their only capital.
– Thomas Jefferson
Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself.
– Thomas Jefferson
Opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view.
– 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
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away
the rights of the other 49.
– Thomas Jefferson
Information is the currency of democracy.
– Thomas Jefferson
A man’s moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.
– Thomas Jefferson
A room without books is like a life without meaning.
– Thomas Jefferson
Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more
valuable possession than time.
– Thomas Jefferson
The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods
of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster, cruel, vengeful, and
capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging three headed beast like god one only
needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two
classes fools and hypocrites.
– Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves. If we
are directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we will soon want for bread.
– Thomas Jefferson
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
– Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
– Thomas Jefferson
One man with courage is a majority.
– Thomas Jefferson
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
– Thomas Jefferson
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While
this gives 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.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
– Thomas Jefferson
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
– Thomas Jefferson
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
– Thomas Jefferson
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being
lost.
– Thomas Jefferson
Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.
– Thomas Jefferson
He is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.
– Thomas Jefferson
Occasionally the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
– Thomas Jefferson
Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.
– 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
I cannot live without books.
– Thomas Jefferson
The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness.
Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.
– Thomas Jefferson
When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people
there is liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson
Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
– Thomas Jefferson
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by
inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive
the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent they
conquered.
– Thomas Jefferson
The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and
misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these
calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavours of our lives.
– Thomas Jefferson
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
– Thomas Jefferson
Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no,
not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a
desert for our love.
– Thomas Jefferson
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men
whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of
thinking for myself.
– Thomas Jefferson
Never put off for tomorrow, what you can do today.
– Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
– Thomas Jefferson
The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all
human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater
or less degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.
– Thomas Jefferson
A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.
– Thomas Jefferson
We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority
who participate.
– Thomas Jefferson
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
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and
errors.
– Thomas Jefferson
An insult unpunished is the parent of many others.
– Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks
my pocket nor breaks my leg.
– Thomas Jefferson
Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.
– Thomas Jefferson
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
– Thomas Jefferson
We never repent of having eaten too little.
– Thomas Jefferson
Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you
have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
– Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson
I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.
– Thomas Jefferson
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
– Thomas Jefferson
Rise at a fixed and an early hour, and go to bed at a fixed and early hour also. Sitting up late
at night is injurious to the health and not useful to the mind.
– Thomas Jefferson
Beer, if drunk in moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit and promotes health.
– Thomas Jefferson
To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of
Jesus himself.
– Thomas Jefferson
If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their
bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny.
– 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 end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government
falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
– Thomas Jefferson
To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We
must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
– 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
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
– Thomas Jefferson
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the
greater it will be.
– Thomas Jefferson
The genuine and simple religion of Jesus will one day be restored; such as it was preached and
practiced by himself.
– Thomas Jefferson
Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.
– Thomas Jefferson
No man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him.
– Thomas Jefferson
The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.
– Thomas Jefferson
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
– Thomas Jefferson
I never did in my life, either by myself or by any other, have a sentence of mine inserted in a
newspaper without putting my name to it; and I believe I never shall.
– Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure.
– Thomas Jefferson