Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.

All power is inherent in the people.

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 blind-folded fear.

My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just

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.

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone.

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.

I believe in both a creative and personal God, a divinely ordered universe, that man has an innate moral sense, and that Jesus was a great moral teacher, perhaps the greatest the world has witnessed.

Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling; for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.

Your own reason is the only oracle given to you by God.

He does most in God's great world who does his best in his own little world.

Resisting tyranny is obeying God

Every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of god.

Question boldly even the existence of God.

I have done for my country and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.

The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.

Good wine is a necessity of life for me.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the State to be troubled with it.

A little revolution is a good thing.

Malice will always find bad motives for good actions. - Shall we therefore never do good?

It would not be for the public good to have [a majority in Congress of one party] greater [than] two to one.

I have so much confidence in the good sense of man, and his qualifications for self-government, that I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force.

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.