Top 500 Thomas Jefferson Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

103. “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

104. “A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

106. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

108. “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

109. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

113. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

115. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

118. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

122. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

129. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

132. “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

133. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

139. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

141. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

147. “The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.”

— Thomas Jefferson

148. “We must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.”

— Thomas Jefferson

149. “The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.”

— Thomas Jefferson

150. “But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”

— Thomas Jefferson