Quotes About Thomas Jefferson

Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.

The cement of this union is in the heart blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis.

No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.

Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.

This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.

The protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree.

A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir

Thomas Jefferson spoke of certain truths as self-evident. He did not say that these truths were self-explanatory or that they were self-operating.

Roosevelt could not help but be affected by the Chairman's worried mood. Before their meeting on 3 August he had been confident of a Republican victory in November, but after it he wrote gloomily to Cecil Spring Rice, "If Bryan wins, we have before us some years of social misery, not markedly different from that of any South American republic Ã¢â'¬Â¦ Bryan closely resembles Thomas Jefferson, whose accession to the Presidency was a terrible blow to this nation."21

People have always said - those words, 'too conservative,' is fairly relative. I'm sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

All the States but our own are sensible that knowlege is power.

Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced me that this would be very mischievous.

As was said by Thomas Jefferson, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

a Supreme Court which is careless of the law can diminish respect for law. But there are clearly times when what might have been acceptable to Thomas Jefferson becomes unacceptable to us, and whether in 1954 Jefferson might have made Sally Hemings drink at the water fountain marked 'Coloreds Only' becomes irrelevant. At best.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God

Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.

The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.

The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.