Thomas Jefferson quotes

“Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Power is not alluring to pure minds”

— Thomas Jefferson

“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“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

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?”

— Thomas Jefferson

“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“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

“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

“I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.”

— Thomas Jefferson

“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”

— Thomas Jefferson