Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Never spend your money before you have it.

I cannot live without books.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Health is worth more than learning.

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. 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 blindfolded fear.

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.

No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.

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

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

I`m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

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

No instance exists of a person`s writing two languages perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.

If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

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

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

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.

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing (a people) to slavery.

The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being

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

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 believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. 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 will grow up around (the banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

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

Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.

Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity

On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.

There is...an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents.... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy.

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.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.

I`m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried

Delay is preferable to error.

No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable

If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is, that we should have nothing to do with conquest

The best principles of our republic secure to all its citizens a perfect equality of rights.

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

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, then and only then will truth, prevail over fanaticism

Tranquility is the old man`s milk

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

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

The juries are our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.

The merchant has no country

All authority belongs to the people

What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.

I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man

Conquest is not in our principles; it is inconsistent with our government

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it's liberty and interests by the most lasting bands

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.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

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

Every generation needs a new revolution.

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

Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong

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

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

I read no newspaper now but Ritchie`s, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.