Top 500 Thomas Jefferson Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.”

— Thomas Jefferson

352. “A little rebellion is a good thing.”

— Thomas Jefferson

353. “Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.”

— Thomas Jefferson

354. “Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.”

— Thomas Jefferson

355. “Every man has a commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error.”

— Thomas Jefferson

356. “I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations – to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements under all circumstances, to be open and generous, promoting in the long run even the interests of both.”

— Thomas Jefferson

357. “If virtuous, the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics.”

— Thomas Jefferson

358. “I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. He is the most unfit man I know for such a place.”

— Thomas Jefferson

359. “I consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered by himself to contain the outlines of the sublimest system of morality that has ever been taught but I hold in the most profound detestation and execration the corruptions of it which have been invented...”

— Thomas Jefferson

360. “There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe: the public education, and the sub-division of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks.”

— Thomas Jefferson

361. “The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.”

— Thomas Jefferson

362. “Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.”

— Thomas Jefferson

363. “Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

— Thomas Jefferson

364. “I never before knew the full value of trees. Under them I breakfast, dine, write, read and receive my company.”

— Thomas Jefferson

365. “If you are obliged to neglect any thing, let it be your chemistry. It is the least useful and the least amusing to a country gentleman of all the ordinary branches of science.”

— Thomas Jefferson

366. “One war, such as that of our Revolution, is enough for one life.”

— Thomas Jefferson

367. “Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.”

— Thomas Jefferson

368. “Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.”

— Thomas Jefferson

369. “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely gives him comfortable subsistence.”

— Thomas Jefferson

370. “With nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.”

— Thomas Jefferson

371. “I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.”

— Thomas Jefferson

372. “It’s only merit was in being the first publication which carried the claim of our rights their whole length, and asserted that there was no rightful link of connection between us and England but that of being under the same king.”

— Thomas Jefferson

373. “Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.”

— Thomas Jefferson

374. “What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.”

— Thomas Jefferson

375. “History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.”

— Thomas Jefferson

376. “Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.”

— Thomas Jefferson

377. “The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.”

— Thomas Jefferson

378. “If I could not go to heaven with but a party, I would not go there at all. Therefore, I am not of the party of federalists. But I am much further from that of the anti-federalists.”

— Thomas Jefferson

379. “We prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form and to any people whatever.”

— Thomas Jefferson

380. “Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”

— Thomas Jefferson

381. “The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”

— Thomas Jefferson

382. “Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.”

— Thomas Jefferson

383. “Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.”

— Thomas Jefferson

384. “The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.”

— Thomas Jefferson

385. “I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.”

— Thomas Jefferson

386. “We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self – government.”

— Thomas Jefferson

387. “Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.”

— Thomas Jefferson

388. “Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.”

— Thomas Jefferson

389. “Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen, people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.”

— Thomas Jefferson

390. “We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

— Thomas Jefferson

391. “A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.”

— Thomas Jefferson

392. “The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.”

— Thomas Jefferson

393. “Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.”

— Thomas Jefferson

394. “If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.”

— Thomas Jefferson

395. “For Heaven’s sake discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum.”

— Thomas Jefferson

396. “The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man.”

— Thomas Jefferson

397. “Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it is what I have steadfastly believed.”

— Thomas Jefferson

398. “I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.”

— Thomas Jefferson

399. “Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.”

— Thomas Jefferson

400. “If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

— Thomas Jefferson