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Thomas Jefferson Quotes about Evil

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When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

Thomas Jefferson
Evil, Voting, Principles

The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.

Thomas Jefferson
Fighting, Winning, Evil

1.Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 2.Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 3.Never spend your money before you have it. 4.Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. 5.Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. 6.We never repent of having eaten too little. 7.Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 8.How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened. 9.Take things always by their smooth handle. 10.When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

Thomas Jefferson
Pain, Pride, Evil
Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.402

Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils of misgovernment.

Thomas Jefferson
People, Evil, Protect
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to it, meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil; while fretting and fuming only serves to increase your own torments.

Thomas Jefferson
Perseverance, Evil, Mind
Thomas Jefferson (1964). “To the Girls and Boys: Being the Delightful, Little-known Letters of Thomas Jefferson to and from His Children and Grandchildren”

I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.

Thomas Jefferson
War, Two, Evil
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.363

We are overdone with banking institutions, which have banished the precious metals, and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium... These have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness... These are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.

Thomas Jefferson
Wisdom, Evil, Employment
Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.516

It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please . . . . Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

Thomas Jefferson
Mean, Evil, Judging

When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the means of producing some good.

Thomas Jefferson
Mean, Order, Evil
Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.167, Rowman & Littlefield

The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it; but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.

Thomas Jefferson
Party, Character, Evil
Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.440

Hindsight is an exact science. Hold fast to your dreams, for it dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

Thomas Jefferson
Dream, Pain, Evil

The only greater [evil] than separation... [is] living under a government of discretion.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Evil, Separation

The evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come.

Thomas Jefferson
War, Long, Evil
Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.231, Algora Publishing

The States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of rights, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation.

Thomas Jefferson
Rights, Evil, Separation
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.432

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Thomas Jefferson
Evil, Suffering, Unalienable Rights
Declaration of Independence (1776)

It is a happy circumstance in human affairs that evils which are not cured in one way will cure themselves in some other.

Thomas Jefferson
Evil, Advice, Way
Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.17, Modern Library

It is a [disputed] question, whether the circulation of paper, rather than of specie [gold and silver coin], is a good or an evil I believe it to be one of those cases where mercantile clamor will bear down reason, until it is corrected by ruin.

Thomas Jefferson
Believe, Evil, Gold

Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence if possible, from social life. The good are rare enough at best. There is no reason to subdivide them by artificial lines. But whether we shall ever be able so far to perfect the principles of society as that political opinions shall, in its intercourse, be as inoffensive as those of philosophy, mechanics, or any other, may well be doubted.

Thomas Jefferson
Philosophy, Political Opinions, Evil
Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.137, Algora Publishing

The declaration of rights [Bill of Rights] is, like all other human blessings, alloyed with some inconveniences and not accomplishing fully its object. But the good in this instance vastly outweighs the evil.

Thomas Jefferson
Blessing, Rights, Evil

Our public credit is good, but the abundance of paper has produced a spirit of gambling in the funds, which has laid up our ships at the wharves as too slow instruments of profit, and has even disarmed the hand of the tailor of his needle and thimble. They say the evil will cure itself. I wish it may; but I have rarely seen a gamester cured, even by the disasters of his vocation.

Thomas Jefferson
Gambling, Hands, Evil
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.126