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Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 21

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During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution

During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.

Thomas Jefferson
Order, Safety, Abuse
Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Thomas Jefferson
4th Of July, Media, Government
Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.133, Rowman & Littlefield

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.

Thomas Jefferson
Book, Fate, People
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.40

A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.

Thomas Jefferson
Book, Would Be, Tools
Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.922, Library of America

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead ofpersuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Vices, Amplification
Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.56, Modern Library

There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Aristocracy, Ingredients
Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.187, Cambridge University Press

Slavery is an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such, but I own that I nor any other man has any immediate solution to the problem.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Slavery, Problem

I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.

Thomas Jefferson
Pain, Lying, Giving
Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816”, p.507, Cosimo, Inc.

Such is the moral construction of the world that no national crime passes unpunished in the long run... Were present oppressors to reflect on the same truth, they would spare to their own countries the penalties on their present wrongs which will be inflicted on them in future times. The seeds of hatred and revenge which they sow with a large hand will not fail to produce their fruits in time. Like their brother robbers on the highway, they suppose the escape of the moment a final escape and deem infamy and future risk countervailed by present gain.

Thomas Jefferson
Karma, Country, Running

If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves.

Thomas Jefferson
Happiness, Degrees, Made
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

The past stays put, I just keep moving farther away from it.

Thomas Jefferson
Moving, Past, Catchy

To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Political, Fields
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.556

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.

Thomas Jefferson
Desire, Slavery, States
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence and miscellanies from the papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.111

Truth and reason are eternal. They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail; however, in times and places they may be overborne for a while by violence, military, civil, or ecclesiastical.

Thomas Jefferson
Military, May, Politics
Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.228, Rowman & Littlefield

The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, in-as-much as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehood and errors.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Errors, Gossip
Letter to John Norvell, June 11, 1807.

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism.

Thomas Jefferson
Law, Practice, Public Opinion

The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.

Thomas Jefferson
Country, Should Have, Justice
Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.431, Penguin

Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment & enjoiment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.

Thomas Jefferson
Exercise, Blood, Should Have
Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798”, p.173, Cosimo, Inc.

I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.

Thomas Jefferson
Country, Father, Israel
Thomas Jefferson (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.45

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce...

Thomas Jefferson
Christian, Kings, War
Thomas Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence, founders.archives.gov. June 11 – July 4, 1776.

No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity

Thomas Jefferson
Ignorance, Nigeria Independence, Impunity
Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.114, Modern Library

Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Yield, Mind
Thomas Jefferson (2012). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 8: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815”, p.212, Princeton University Press

In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time.

Thomas Jefferson
Party, Men, Opposites
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph”, p.400

I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Law, Ethics
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.339

The movements of nature are in a never ending circle. The animal species which has once been put into a train of motion, is still probably moving in that train. For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another and another might be lost, till this whole system of things should evanish by piece-meal; a conclusion not warranted by the local disappearance of one or two species of animals, and opposed by the thousands and thousands of instances of the renovating power constantly exercised by nature for the reproduction of all her subjects, animal, vegetable, and mineral.

Thomas Jefferson
Nature, Moving, Animal
"Revenge of the Meat-Eating Megatherium" by Brian Switek, www.wired.com. June 9, 2011.