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Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 18

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No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage

No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage

Thomas Jefferson
Wine, Alcohol, Vineyards
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.312

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Religion, Reason
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.360

If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Rights, Feelings
Thomas Jefferson (1853). “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.319

Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.

Thomas Jefferson
Religious, Heart, Land
Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.235, Penguin

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it (i.e. the Book of Revelations), and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherence of our own nightly dreams.

Thomas Jefferson
Dream, Religious, Book

By nature's law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force his own property taken from him by another, by force of fraud. Nor is this natural right among the first which is taken into the hands of regular government after it is instituted. It was long retained by our ancestors. It was a part of their common law, laid down in their books, recognized by all the authorities, and regulated as to circumstances of practice.

Thomas Jefferson
Book, Taken, Men
Thomas Jefferson (1884). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Published by Order of Congress from the Original Manuscripts Deposited in the Department of State”

It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By a universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Progress Of Society, Law

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

Thomas Jefferson
Doe, World, Littles

preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.

Thomas Jefferson
Wisdom, Educational, Ignorance
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.8

If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Free Press, Ifs

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

Thomas Jefferson
Love, Strength, Hope
Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.331

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

Thomas Jefferson
Book, 4th Of July, Men
Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.210, Cosimo, Inc.

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.

Thomas Jefferson
Lying, Mean, Vices
Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.81, Courier Corporation

To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.

Thomas Jefferson
Christian, Jesus, Believe
Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.267, Cambridge University Press

All power is inherent in the people.

Thomas Jefferson
Gun, Strong Arms, People
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.404

Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.

Thomas Jefferson
Education, People, Liberty
Thomas Jefferson (2017). “LETTERS”, p.709, 右灰文化傳播有限公司可提供下載列印

Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.

Thomas Jefferson
Character, Gun, Games
Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

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

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Political, Democracy
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1853). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.38

If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Newspapers, Latter

You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.

Thomas Jefferson
Art, World, Enthusiasm
Thomas Jefferson (1853). “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.433

To me... it appears that there have been differences of opinion and party differences, from the first establishment of government to the present day, and on the same question which now divides our own country; that these will continue through all future time; that every one takes his side in favor of the many, or of the few, according to his constitution, and the circumstances in which he is placed.

Thomas Jefferson
Country, Party, Differences
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.208

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.

Thomas Jefferson
Christian, Religious, Atheist
Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1932, Library of America

I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many.

Thomas Jefferson
Mean, Liberty, May
Thomas Jefferson (1856). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.548

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.

Thomas Jefferson
Religious, Jesus, Atheist
Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1970, Library of America

The plough is to the farmer what the wand is to the sorcerer. Its effect is really like sorcery.

Thomas Jefferson
Science, Sorcery, Wands
Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 11 March to 27 November 1813”