Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Labor

• I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Thinking, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.461, Penguin

• A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.65, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Thinking, Government, Two

  Letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824.

• A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Happiness, Labor Day, Secret

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.6, Modern Library

• Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Libertarian Party, Democracies Have

• To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Government, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.369

• Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Garden, People, Earth

  Thomas Jefferson (1801). “Notes on the State of Virginia”, p.244

• I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Believe, Light

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.293, Algora Publishing

• Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Business, Men

• ‎We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Running, Caring, Government

• A noiseless course, not meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, People, Unattractive

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.453

• A mind always employed is always happy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Labor Day, Mind, May Day

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.6, Modern Library

• To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical...A wise and frugal government...shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned...Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated...Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Men, Hands

  A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, Chapter 82, 1779.

• Idleness begets ennui, ennui the hypochondriac, and that a diseased body. No laborious person was ever yet hysterical.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Body, Hysterical, Ennui

  Letter to Martha Jefferson, 28 March (1787)

• The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Nature, Educational, Men

• They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretarry of state”, p.288

• Indeed, we need not look back half a century to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences and arts which have been made within that period. Some of these have rendered the elements themselves subservient to the purposes of man, have harnessed them to the yoke of his labors and effected the great blessings of moderating his own, of accomplishing what was beyond his feeble force, and extending the comforts of life to a much enlarged circle, to those who had before known its necessaries only.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Art, Science

  Thomas Jefferson (1964). “Crusade Against Ignorance”

• Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling; for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Agriculture, People, Calling

• I recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than force? Are there no means of coercing injustice more gratifying to our nature than a waste of the blood of thousands and of the labor of millions of our fellow creatures?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Men, Blood

  Thomas Jefferson, Barbara B. Oberg, Lyman Henry Butterfield, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti (2003). “The papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 January 1798 to 31 January 1799”, Princeton Univ Pr

• In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are what they should be - burdens to those appointed to them which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring them intense labor and great private loss.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Loss, Government, Times Like These

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.44, Modern Library

• I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Generations, Influence, Peril

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.432, Penguin

• How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Selfish, Men, Energy

• No man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Work, Men, Labor

  Thomas Jefferson “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, Lulu.com

• We have no paupers ... The great mass of our [United States] population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families. ... Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Land, Class, Demand

• Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Sea, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.416, Cambridge University Press

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