Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself?

We must therefore… hold them [the British] as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

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

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

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

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

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.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

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

Whensoever hostile aggressions… require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

I recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than force? Are there no means of coercing injustice more gratifying to our nature than a waste of the blood of thousands and of the labor of millions of our fellow creatures?

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.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.

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?