Thomas Jefferson Quotes About 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

• How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pain, Fear, Self Esteem

• The instability of our laws is really an immense evil. I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions that there shall always be a twelve-month between the ingross-ing a bill & passing it: that it should then be offered to its passage without changing a word: and that if circum-stances should be thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two thirds of both houses instead of a bare majority.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Thinking, Law, Two

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.363, Cambridge University Press

• By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Army, Rights

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.11, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are. There is scarcely an evil known in these countries, which may not be traced to their king, as its source, nor a good, which is not derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Kings, Europe

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.98, Rowman & Littlefield

• Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspiring, Education, Patriotic

  Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.86, Courier Corporation

• 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

• Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Courage, Patriotic, Men

• 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

• 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”

• Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Peace, War

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.232, Algora Publishing

• 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

• 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

• The evils which of necessity encompass the life of man are sufficiently numerous. Why should we add to them by voluntarily distressing and destroying one another? Peace, brothers, is better than war. In a long and bloody war, we lose many friends, and gain nothing. Let us then live in peace and friendship together, doing to each other all the good we can.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, Brother, War

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution”, p.163, Algora Publishing

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Evil, Separation

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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)

• 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

• 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

• 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

• We may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights and especially that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Rights, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.608, Cambridge University Press

• 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

• 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

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