Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Mankind

• Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Friendship, Peace

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

• The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Real, Teaching

• All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. The palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Eye, Men

  Letter to Roger C.Weightman, 24 June 1826.

• I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Views

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.372, Penguin

• I have great confidence in the common sense of mankind in general.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Confidence, Common Sense, Mankind

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.172, Cambridge University Press

• The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Grace, Liberty

  Letter to Roger C.Weightman, 24 June 1826.

• In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Men, Abuse

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.74, Modern Library

• 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

• Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Failure, Government, Giving

  Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “Paine and Jefferson on Liberty”, p.22, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

• But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Faith Religion, Departed

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.492

• Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Heart, Land

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.235, Penguin

• The rights [to religious freedom] are of the natural rights of mankind, and ... if any act shall be ... passed to repeal [an act granting those rights] or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Rights, Natural

• Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment & enjoiment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Blood, Should Have

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798”, p.173, Cosimo, Inc.

• When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Respect, Nature, Law

  Declaration of Independence (1776)

• The ocean ... like the air, is the common birth-right of mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ocean, Science, Air

• the field of knolege is the common property of all mankind

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Knowledge, Fields

  Thomas Jefferson (1898). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1807-1815”

• no one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in it's effect towards supporting free & good government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Government, Wish

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.521

• No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Government, Self

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution”, p.292, Algora Publishing

• Convinced that the republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind, my prayers & efforts shall be cordially distributed to the support of that we have so happily established. It is indeed an animating thought that, while we are securing the rights of ourselves & our posterity, we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also. Heaven help their struggles, and lead them, as it has done us, triumphantly thro' them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Prayer, War, Struggle

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.116, Rowman & Littlefield

• The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of Heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Family, Heaven, Being Thankful

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.103

• War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Blessing

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.236, Algora Publishing

• The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Rights, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.116, Rowman & Littlefield

• I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Division, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.154, Hackett Publishing

• My affections were first for my own country, then, generally, for all mankind

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Patriotism, Firsts

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution”, p.244, Algora Publishing

• 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 ...”

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