Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, 'til at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance....The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism.

It is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance.

Slavery] will yield in time to temperate & steady pursuit, to the enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in science. We are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and the power of a superior agent, our efforts are in his hand, and directed by it; and he will give them their effect in his own time.

Se c'è tra noi chi voglia dissolvere questa Unione o cambiarne la forma repubblicana, lo si lasci indisturbato, a testimonianza della sicurezza con la quale si possono tollerare opinioni errate là dove la ragione è libera di combatterle.

If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done.

a woman who brings a child every two years [is] more profitable than the best man of the farm.

Leadership is knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts and minds of the larger world. ~ Using philosophy and history to create emotional appeals to shape broad public sentiment.

Question with boldness even the existence of God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

Liberty is the parent of science and of virtue, and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

This is a subject with which wisdom and patriotism should be occupied.

On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct.

I advance it therefore [...] that the blacks [...] are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.

War is as much a punishment to the punisher as it is to the sufferer.

My general plan would be to make the states one as to every thing connected with foreign nations, and several as to every thing purely domestic. But with all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing or that ever did exist.

The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed thro' all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the "aristoi" should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot.

The most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire within ourselves and suffice for our own happiness.

In the environment, every victory is temporary, every defeat permanent.

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them.