Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder, it pains me to an unspeakable degree.

Gotta love life's little ironies, for the same man once said: Were it left for 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. And Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

46. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 47. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

The people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, & they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree.

Pokud chcete nÄ›co, co jste nikdy nemÄ›li, musíte být ochotni udÄ›lat nÄ›co, co jste nikdy neudÄ›lali.

I cannot live without books. --Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Body and mind both unemployed, our being becomes a burthen, and every object about us loathsome, even the dearest. Idleness begets ennui, ennui the hypochondria, and that a diseased body.

armament has been ordered at Brest

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil, while fretting and fuming only increase your own torments.

Advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on in a newspaper.

All authority belongs to the people.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

The habit of using ardent spirits by men in office has occasioned more injury to the public, and more trouble to me, than all other causes. Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate for office would be, Does he use ardent spirits?

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

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if He ever had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.

France, freed from that monster, Bonaparte, must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune give a preference to some other one, and the first choice of all not under those ties.

Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety, and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished, all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want.