Thomas Jefferson quotes - page 7

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it. (Thomas Jefferson)
Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United States; its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
The idea of creating a national bank I do not concur in, because it seems now decided that Congress has not that power (although I sincerely wish they had it exclusively), and because I think there is already a vast redundancy rather than a scarcity of paper medium. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it, and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams. ... what has no meaning admits no explanation. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive. (Thomas Jefferson)
It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely, and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
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. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four words: 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our enquiries must end. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people. (Thomas Jefferson)
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
The policy of American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. View quote
Thomas Jefferson
I have ever deemed it more honorable and profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one. View quote
Thomas Jefferson