Quotes About Thomas Jefferson

Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, - these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.

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

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 constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

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

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.

Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason.

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 wthout government, I should not hesita

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding... { Letter to John Adams , April 11, 1823 }

Thomas Jefferson convinced his fellow Founding Fathers of the American republic to adopt the Roman grid barely four years after their victory against the British Empire.

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined here alone.

[W]ell I know that no man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it.

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

It is wrong, I think, to deal with the past as if it can be simply departed from or "solved," or brought to "closure." It is discouraging to see the conservatives treat history as one of the "humanities" that can be dispensed with or ignored by hardheaded realists. It is both discouraging and amusing to be assured by the liberals that the past can be risen above by superior persons who, if they had been Thomas Jefferson, would have owned no slaves.

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." ---Thomas Jefferson

saw you, Sally Hemings is the name of it. It's in paperback for $3.25. She was Thomas Jefferson's slave and mistress for twenty-plus years. A really good book with real

One of the architects of what is now the world's only superpower was Thomas Jefferson.

The genesis of some of this thinking might have been the words of Thomas Jefferson in his influential and widely circulated 1785 book Notes on the State of Virginia. Though he was not a doctor or scientist, Jefferson cataloged the physiological ways Black bodies differed from white bodies in this 244-page document.

If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.