Top 500 Thomas Jefferson Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 4 of 10

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

— Thomas Jefferson

152. “A strong body makes the mind strong.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

154. “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

155. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

157. “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

158. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

161. “The dead should not rule the living.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

165. “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

166. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

168. “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

169. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

171. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

176. “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

177. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

179. “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

180. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

185. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

187. “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

188. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

190. “Delay is preferable to error.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

192. “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

193. “Victory and defeat are each of the same price.”

— Thomas Jefferson

194. “The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.”

— Thomas Jefferson

195. “Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God.”

— Thomas Jefferson

196. “There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.”

— Thomas Jefferson

197. “No government can continue good, but under the control of the people.”

— Thomas Jefferson

198. “The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives.”

— Thomas Jefferson

199. “History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.”

— Thomas Jefferson

200. “There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.”

— Thomas Jefferson