Quotes By Thomas Jefferson

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

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.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.