A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
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 Quote
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Delay is preferable to error.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
If God is just, I tremble for my country.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
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 Quote
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
One man with courage is a majority.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The god who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the tracts which favor that theory.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
- Thomas Jefferson Quote
