Quotes By Thomas Jefferson

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.