Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Books

• Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Positive, Wisdom

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.112
• 

  The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Business, Book, Reading

• The whole history of these books (i.e. the Gospels) is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Book, Men

• I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Family, Book, Food

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.64, Algora Publishing

• I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Book, Safe Return

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1601, Library of America

• I cannot live without books.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Reading, Beer

  Letter to John Adams, 10 June 1815

• It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it (i.e. the Book of Revelations), and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherence of our own nightly dreams.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Dream, Religious, Book

• 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

• 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

  Book, 4th Of July, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.210, Cosimo, Inc.

• Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Book, Believe

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.340

• I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Use, Fewer

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.263

• If the book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Political Differences, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.41, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Book, Fate

  Thomas Jefferson (2012). “Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

• I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Thinking, America

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.41, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• A room without books is like a life without meaning.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Rooms, Lovers

• By nature's law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force his own property taken from him by another, by force of fraud. Nor is this natural right among the first which is taken into the hands of regular government after it is instituted. It was long retained by our ancestors. It was a part of their common law, laid down in their books, recognized by all the authorities, and regulated as to circumstances of practice.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Taken, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1884). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Published by Order of Congress from the Original Manuscripts Deposited in the Department of State”

• 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

• Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Honesty, Book, Character

• Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in Government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Book, Reading

  1816 Letter to Samuel Kercheval, 12 Jul.

• From candlelight to early bedtime, I read.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Reading, Bedtime

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

• Books may be classed from the Faculties of the mind

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Book, Mind

• music, drawing, books, invention & exercise will be so many resources to you against ennui.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Book, Exercise

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1786-1787”, p.266, Cosimo, Inc.

• [If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Men, Thinking

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.340

• Inspirational Quotes on: Honesty, Simplicity, Secret, Universe, Modesty, Peace
  Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Honesty, Book, Simplicity

• An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens . . . There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends and books.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Exercise, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.185

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