Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Page 4 of 10

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

— Thomas Jefferson

302. “The sheep are happier of themselves, than under the care of wolves.”

— Thomas Jefferson

303. “A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.”

— Thomas Jefferson

304. “Should things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights.”

— Thomas Jefferson

305. “I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word in only one way.”

— Thomas Jefferson

306. “Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

— Thomas Jefferson

307. “To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

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

— Thomas Jefferson

310. “Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.”

— Thomas Jefferson

311. “A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.”

— Thomas Jefferson

312. “When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to it, meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil; while fretting and fuming only serves to increase your own torments.”

— Thomas Jefferson

313. “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

314. “A pirate spreading misery and ruin over the face of the ocean.”

— Thomas Jefferson

315. “My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!”

— Thomas Jefferson

316. “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.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Reading Quotes

317. “Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act if all the world were looking at you, and act accordingly.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

319. “Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

321. “The First Amendment has created a wall of separation between the church and the State. But that wall is one directional. It is to keep the government from running the Church. But it is not to keep Christian principles out of the government.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

323. “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

— Thomas Jefferson

324. “I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”

— Thomas Jefferson

325. “The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.”

— Thomas Jefferson

326. “Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.”

— Thomas Jefferson

327. “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.”

— Thomas Jefferson

328. “Men as well as rivers grow crooked by following the path of least resistance.”

— Thomas Jefferson

329. “While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

331. “The colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe. While Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, all other countries give it to the latter.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

332. “Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.”

— Thomas Jefferson

333. “Our minds and hearts are free to believe everything or nothing at all – and it is our duty to protect and perpetuate this sacred culture of freedom.”

— Thomas Jefferson

334. “I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.”

— Thomas Jefferson

335. “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

— Thomas Jefferson

336. “All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

— Thomas Jefferson

337. “Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

338. “I extremely believe in luck, and I discovered more hard work, your luck as much.”

— Thomas Jefferson

339. “I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender.”

— Thomas Jefferson

340. “A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”

— Thomas Jefferson

341. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

344. “Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Strong Quotes, Country Quotes

345. “It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.”

— Thomas Jefferson

346. “A good cause is often injured more by ill-timed efforts of its friends than by the arguments of its enemies. Persuasion, perseverance and patience are the best advocates on questions depending on the will of others.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

348. “Truth between candid minds can never do harm.”

— Thomas Jefferson

349. “We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but the guarrantors of only our own.”

— Thomas Jefferson

350. “Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap.”

— Thomas Jefferson