Top 500 Thomas Jefferson Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.”

— Thomas Jefferson

102. “A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.”

— Thomas Jefferson

103. “Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.”

— Thomas Jefferson

104. “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”

— Thomas Jefferson

105. “The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven. I can scarcely expect bread.”

— Thomas Jefferson

106. “Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.”

— Thomas Jefferson

107. “May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.”

— Thomas Jefferson

108. “There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.”

— Thomas Jefferson

109. “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

110. “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.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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111. “Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise, and the weather shall be little regarded. If the body is feeble, the mind will not be strong.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Strong Quotes

112. “Paper is poverty, it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

115. “The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.”

— Thomas Jefferson

116. “The people will not understand the importance of the Second Amendment until it is too late.”

— Thomas Jefferson

117. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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118. “A true patriot will defend his country from its government.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

119. “I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man.”

— Thomas Jefferson

120. “The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

122. “Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people.”

— Thomas Jefferson

123. “How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.”

— Thomas Jefferson

124. “The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years.”

— Thomas Jefferson

125. “The federal government is our servant, not our master.”

— Thomas Jefferson

126. “Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.”

— Thomas Jefferson

127. “I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.”

— Thomas Jefferson

128. “The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”

— Thomas Jefferson

129. “The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.”

— Thomas Jefferson

130. “When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”

— Thomas Jefferson

131. “Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to the truth.”

— Thomas Jefferson

132. “No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism.”

— Thomas Jefferson

133. “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. The Europeans value themselves on having subdued the horse to the uses of man; but I doubt whether we have not lost more than we have gained, by the use of this animal.”

— Thomas Jefferson

134. “Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.”

— Thomas Jefferson

135. “I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.”

— Thomas Jefferson

136. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

— Thomas Jefferson

137. “If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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138. “In the environment, every victory is temporary, every defeat permanent.”

— Thomas Jefferson

139. “I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.”

— Thomas Jefferson

140. “I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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141. “Paper money is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

142. “Every man has two countries: his own and France.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

143. “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.”

— Thomas Jefferson

144. “A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”

— Thomas Jefferson

145. “Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.”

— Thomas Jefferson

146. “Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.”

— Thomas Jefferson

147. “The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.”

— Thomas Jefferson

148. “Of all exercises, walking is the best.”

— Thomas Jefferson

149. “That government that governs least governs best.”

— Thomas Jefferson

150. “It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.”

— Thomas Jefferson