Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Habits

• When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine. Why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ...Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Errors, Silence

• 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

• No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and . . . . their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice . . . . These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Order, People

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.149

• Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Silence, Political, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.279, Cambridge University Press

• When habit has strengthened our sense of duties, they leave us no time for other things; but when young we neglect them and this gives us time for anything.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Giving, Habit, Neglect

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States (1903). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Government, Self

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.341

• Should [reformers] attempt more than the established habits of the people are ripe for, they may lose all and retard indefinitely the ultimate object of their aim.

  Thomas Jefferson

  People, May, Revolution

• I hold it certain that to open the doors of truth and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Doors, Hands, People

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.271, Cambridge University Press

• Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Men, Hypocrisy

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.34, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• SIR,-Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the 1st instant; and the request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled me not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied it, of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as a history of my own. Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating very little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principle diet.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Animal, Doctors, Hands

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.321

• [If] the nature of ... government [were] a subordination of the civil to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been]. And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Years, Long

• Gaming corrupts our disposition and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gambling, Habit, Disposition

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

• All the capital employed in paper speculation is barren and useless, producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself, and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture where it would have produced addition to the common mass It nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness instead of industry and morality It has furnished effectual means of corrupting such a portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters whichever way it is directed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Agriculture, Balance

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson memorial association of the United States (1907). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterwards. The fortune of our lives therefore depends on employing well the short period of our youth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Work, Youth, Habit

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.85, Rowman & Littlefield

• In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gambling, Boredom, Employment

• Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skinsand furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Long, Interesting

• Wine from long habit has become an indispensable for my health

  Thomas Jefferson

  Food, Wine, Long

  Thomas Jefferson, J. Jefferson Looney (2004). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 9: 1 September 1815 to 30 April 1816”, p.263, Princeton University Press

• There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Habit, Daily Exercise, Fatigue

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.298, Penguin

• When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the means of producing some good.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Order, Evil

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.167, Rowman & Littlefield

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