Top 500 Thomas Jefferson Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

156. “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

157. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

160. “The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”

— Thomas Jefferson

161. “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

162. “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

164. “The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

167. “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

169. “Delay is preferable to error.”

— Thomas Jefferson

170. “The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land.”

— Thomas Jefferson

171. “Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.”

— Thomas Jefferson

172. “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

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173. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

175. “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

176. “Merchants have no country.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Featured in: Country Quotes

177. “Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.”

— Thomas Jefferson

178. “The worst day in a man’s life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.”

— Thomas Jefferson

179. “Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

181. “Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

184. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

186. “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

187. “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind.”

— Thomas Jefferson

188. “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.”

— Thomas Jefferson

189. “We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.”

— Thomas Jefferson

190. “Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.”

— Thomas Jefferson

191. “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”

— Thomas Jefferson

192. “An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.”

— Thomas Jefferson

193. “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

194. “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.”

— Thomas Jefferson

195. “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

198. “Above all I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to so they won’t forget the basic principles of freedom.”

— Thomas Jefferson

199. “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

200. “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.”

— Thomas Jefferson