Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.

And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

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. [Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July 1816, denouncing the doctrine of the Trinity]

No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.

But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.

Those who labor 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.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

The second office of the government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and 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.

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

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice cannot sleep forever.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.

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

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

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.

The generation which commences a revolution can rarely complete it.

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

The good old Dominion, the blessed mother of us all.