Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Purpose

• The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Happiness, Government, People

• The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson

  Kings, Ignorance, School

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

• Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Purpose, Action

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.72, Cosimo, Inc.

• History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Believe, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.193, Cambridge University Press

• [The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Government, Law

• The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Ambition, Mean

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

• Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Atheism, Citizens

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.147

• My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Thinking, Religion, Atheism

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.28, Cambridge University Press

• The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Purpose, Abandoned

• 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

• To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, 'to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.' For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union.

  Thomas Jefferson

  United States, Purpose, Taxation

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.216, Penguin

• Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Ignorance

• It is (our) duty . . . to pay especial attention to the principles of government which shall be inculcated therein (at the University), and to provide that none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitutions of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion; and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out specially where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Government, Principles

• The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles.

  Thomas Jefferson

  House, Political, Principles

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

• 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”

• The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves; they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Justice, Purpose

• The Gothic idea that we were to look backwards instead of forwards for the improvement of the human mind, and to recur to the annals of our ancestors for what is most perfect in government, in religion and in learning, is worthy of those bigots in religion and government by whom it has been recommended, and whose purposes it would answer. But it is not an idea which this country will endure.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Ideas, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.318

• It is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Teaching, Government

• I... [proposed] three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of life and such as should be desirable for all who were in easy circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally and in their highest degree... The expenses of [the elementary] schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Children, Teaching, School

• Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose are to provide for defense by all those means to which our resources are competent.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Defense, Purpose

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.59, Modern Library

• I deem it the duty of every man to devote a certain portion of his income for charitable purposes; and that it is his further duty to see it so applied and to do the most good for which it is capable.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Income, Purpose

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

• The people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositaries of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the free principles of the government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Government, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.319

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