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Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 15

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A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.

A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.

Thomas Jefferson
Character, Mean, Tyrants
Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.212, Cosimo, Inc.

Where thought is free in its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself.

Thomas Jefferson
Hazards, Needs, Politics
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.604

When earth is rich it bids defiance to droughts, yields in abundance and of the best quality.

Thomas Jefferson
Yield, Environmental, Quality

And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government or information to the people. This last is the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Order, People
Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.45, Courier Corporation

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

Thomas Jefferson
Motivational, Fitness, Workout
Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1245, Library of America

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

Thomas Jefferson
Trust, Government, People
Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.259, Cambridge University Press

A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.

Thomas Jefferson
Wisdom, Government, History
Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin. Reports and opinions while Secretary of State”, p.82

Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.

Thomas Jefferson
Integrity, Honor, Love And Honor
Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.221

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States.

Thomas Jefferson
Religious, Exercise, Government
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.106

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

Thomas Jefferson
Garden, Tree, Serving Others
Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.238, Rowman & Littlefield

The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Advertising, Saving Money

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Compassion, Rose
Letter to Jean Nicholas Demeunier, 24 Jan. 1786

Coffee - the favorite drink of the civilized world.

Thomas Jefferson
Coffee, World, Drink

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a public debt being a public blessing"; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams.

Thomas Jefferson
Dream, Wisdom, Blessing
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private : Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State”, p.239

He, who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.

Thomas Jefferson
Destiny, Heaven, Religion
Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.90, Courier Corporation

I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Views, Cities
Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.28, Cambridge University Press

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

Thomas Jefferson
Example, Honorable, Profitable
Thomas Jefferson, J. Jefferson Looney (2004). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815”, p.167, Princeton University Press

Bank-paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.

Thomas Jefferson
Historical, Paper, Mediums
Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.199

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste.

Thomas Jefferson
Country, Distance, Eye
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.437

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

Thomas Jefferson
Inspirational, Friendship, Peace
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another.

Thomas Jefferson
Christian, Hatred, Religion

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

Thomas Jefferson
Motivational, Men, Liberty
Thomas Jefferson (2013). “The Jefferson Bible [annotated]: Original Old English Version and Modern Updates to The Jefferson Bible”, p.140, BookBaby

Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.

Thomas Jefferson
Country, Believe, Law
Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.394

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Law, Errors
Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

Thomas Jefferson
Rights, Law, Together
Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.43, Cosimo, Inc.