Top 500 Thomas Jefferson Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

158. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

160. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

167. “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

168. “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

169. “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

170. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

176. “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

177. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

180. “Delay is preferable to error.”

— Thomas Jefferson

181. “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

182. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

184. “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

185. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

188. “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

189. “Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

191. “Merchants have no country.”

— Thomas Jefferson

192. “Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

194. “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

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

— Thomas Jefferson

196. “All through your life, you’ll be faced with making a decision between two things-choose the one that is right. If they are both right, then choose the one that will make you feel the best about it at the end of the day.”

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

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

— Thomas Jefferson

200. “The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.”

— Thomas Jefferson