Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Fathers

• The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Jesus, Atheist

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1970, Library of America

• No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Father, Men

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Father, Israel

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private : Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State”, p.45

• To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's 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 every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Father, Exercise

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Life and Writings of ...”

• There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Father, Hypocrite

• When I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Father, Discovery

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.101

• In our own native land, in defense of the freedom that is our birthright and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it. For the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Taken, Land

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.87, Cambridge University Press

• Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Tombstone, Father

  Epitaph (1826) on Jefferson's gravestone at his home, Monticello, at Charlottesville, Va.

• Female education ... has occupied my attention so far only as the education of my own daughters ... I thought it essential to give them a solid education which might enable them, when become mothers, to educate their own daughters, and even to direct the course for sons, should their fathers be.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Daughter, Mother, Educational

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.247, Hackett Publishing

• We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Father, Ignorance

• I have always said that a studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Bible, Husband, Father

• Take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it for yourself, and then all the world will love you.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Love You, Giving

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.91, Modern Library

• This doctrine ['that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are we must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers']is the genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State, the tenants of which finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations and monopolies of honors, wealth and power, and fear every change as endangering the comforts they now hold.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Men, Honor

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.570, Library of America

• Having labored faithfully in establishing the right of self-government, we see in the rising generation, into whose hands it is passing, that purity of principle and energy of character which will protect and preserve it through their day, and deliver it over to their sons as they receive it from their fathers.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Character, Son

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• among the values of classical learning I estimate the Luxury of reading the Greek & Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals ... I think myself more indebted to my father for this, than for all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my reach.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Educational, Reading

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.131

• ... I am not afraid of priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance on whom their interested duperies were to be played off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develop itself.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Lying, Father

• Creeds have been the bane of the Christian church ... made of Christendom a slaughter-house.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Religious, Father

• Our wish is that...[there be] maintained that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Men, Wish

  Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

• It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Children, Freedom, Father

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Miscellaneous: 4. Parliamentary manual; 5. The anas; 6. Miscellaneous papers”, p.493

• Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Eggs, Broken

• If we believe that he [Jesus Christ]really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanisms, which his biographers [writers of the New Testament]father upon him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Father, Believe

• I sincerely pray that all the members of the human family may, in the time prescribed by the Father of us all, find themselves securely established in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Liberty, May

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• What but education has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors? And what chains them to their present state of barbarism and wretchedness but a bigoted veneration for the supposed superlative wisdom of their fathers and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Civilization, Ideas

  Thomas Jefferson (1976). “Thomas Jefferson, revolutionary philosopher: a selection of writings”, Barron's Educational Series

• If we could believe that Jesus...countenanced the follies, falsehoods and charlatanisms which his biographers father on him, ...the conclusion would be irresistible...that he was an imposter.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Father, Believe

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