Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Morality

• Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Government, Medicine

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

• 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 ...”

• It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Law, Together

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.43, Cosimo, Inc.

• No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Equality, Men, Rights

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.278

• A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Integrity, Responsibility, Hypocrisy

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.66, Modern Library

• Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus....I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Jesus, Real

• When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Resistance, Morality

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.133

• Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Rights, Morality

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.459, Penguin

• Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Character, World

  "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private".

• If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.428, Penguin

• Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Principles, Morality

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.199

• Taste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Cost, Taste

• I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Integrity, Men, Morality

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.239, Algora Publishing

• Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Giving Up, Earth, Morality

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.297, Penguin

• If we suffer ourselves to be frightened from our post by mere lying, surely the enemy will use that weapon; for what one so cheap to those of whose system of politics morality makes no part?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Lying, Enemy, Suffering

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.36

• Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pregnancy, Society, Church

• Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Hero, Important, Society

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.286, Cambridge University Press

• Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Law

• State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Intelligence, Ethics, Morality

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1853). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.238

• He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Religion, Matter

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.216

• Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religion, Liberty, Politics

• Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Reading, Reflection, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.281, Cambridge University Press

• Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Independent, Law, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.317

• Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Jesus, Ignorance

• 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.

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