Top 500 Thomas Jefferson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Motivational Quotes, Success Quotes, Courage Quotes, Change Quotes

2. “Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving their goal; nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Motivational Quotes, Attitude Quotes

3. “I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Perseverance Quotes, Persistence Quotes

4. “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Freedom Quotes, Justice Quotes, Quotes on Liberty, 4th Of July Quotes

5. “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Integrity Quotes, Values Quotes, Wisdom Quotes, Truth Quotes

6. “I cannot live without books.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Study Quotes, Values Quotes, Knowledge Quotes

7. “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Inspirational Quotes for Work, Positive Work Quotes, Work Ethic Quotes, Productivity Quotes

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Wisdom Quotes, Resistance Quotes, Fighting Quotes, Government Quotes

10. “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Government Quotes

11. “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Evil Quotes

12. “Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

— Thomas Jefferson

13. “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

— Thomas Jefferson

14. “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.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Opportunity Quotes, Freedom Quotes, Powerful Quotes, Important Quotes

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Knowledge Quotes

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Quotes About People, 4th Of July Quotes

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

— Thomas Jefferson

18. “Never spend your money before you have earned it.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Personal Responsibility Quotes, Quotes About Money, Smart Quotes, Responsibility Quotes

19. “To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.”

— Thomas Jefferson

20. “Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”

— Thomas Jefferson

21. “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.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Time Quotes, Commitment Quotes, Carpe Diem Quotes, Duty Quotes

22. “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

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty

23. “A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Book Quotes

24. “When the people are afraid of the government, that’s tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that’s liberty.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty

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

— Thomas Jefferson

26. “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Future Quotes

27. “Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Friendship Quotes

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty

30. “A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry.”

— Thomas Jefferson

31. “The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.”

— Thomas Jefferson

32. “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.”

— Thomas Jefferson

33. “A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.”

— Thomas Jefferson

34. “Every generation needs a new revolution.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty

35. “There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”

— Thomas Jefferson

36. “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Efficiency Quotes

37. “One man with courage is a majority.”

— Thomas Jefferson

38. “The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty, Principles And Laws, Democracy Quotes

39. “The possession of facts is knowledge; the use of them is wisdom.”

— Thomas Jefferson

40. “Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality.”

— Thomas Jefferson

41. “Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.”

— Thomas Jefferson

42. “Health is worth more than learning.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Health Quotes

43. “All men are created equal.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Quotes About Work

45. “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

Featured in: Government Quotes

46. “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

47. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

— Thomas Jefferson

48. “What we learn to do, we learn by doing.”

— Thomas Jefferson

49. “Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

50. “The only security of all is in a free press.”

— Thomas Jefferson