Thomas Jefferson Quotes

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be

By Thomas Jefferson

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

By Thomas Jefferson

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

By Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it

By Thomas Jefferson

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.

By Thomas Jefferson

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

By Thomas Jefferson

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

By Thomas Jefferson

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, to many parasites living on the labour of the industrious.

By Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principles of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale

By Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

By Thomas Jefferson

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

By Thomas Jefferson

I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and remaining a mere monument of the times which are past.

By Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them

By Thomas Jefferson

I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

By Thomas Jefferson

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.

By Thomas Jefferson

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

By Thomas Jefferson

I never believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man

By Thomas Jefferson

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

By Thomas Jefferson

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.

By Thomas Jefferson

I live for books.

By Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

By Thomas Jefferson

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man

By Thomas Jefferson

I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

By Thomas Jefferson

I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

By Thomas Jefferson

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

By Thomas Jefferson

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.

By Thomas Jefferson

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

By Thomas Jefferson

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one

By Thomas Jefferson

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

By Thomas Jefferson

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

By Thomas Jefferson