Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Sacrifice

• A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Mean

• The banks themselves were doing business on capitals three-fourths of which were fictitious. This fictitious capital... is now to be lost, and to fall on somebody; it must take on those who have property to meet it, and probably on the less cautious part, who, not aware of the impending catastrophe, have suffered themselves to contract, or to be in debt, and must now sacrifice their property of a value many times the amount of the debt. We have been truly sowing the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Fall, Sacrifice

• I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Beautiful, Fall, Sacrifice

• The last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us. we ought, for so dear a stake, to sacrifice every attachment & every enmity.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Sacrifice, Attachment, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.234, Rowman & Littlefield

• I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Sacrifice, Politics, Sake

  Thomas Jefferson, Charles T. Cullen (1961). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson”

• In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little inconveniences and preferences which will gratify them, and deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration; it is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expressions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as themselves. How cheap a price for the good will of another!

  Thomas Jefferson

  Real, Sacrifice, Expression

• Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us
  by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country
  during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to
  that all personal and local considerations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Sacrifice, Safety

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

• Experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can; when we cannot do all we would wish.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Sacrifice, Long, Wish

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

• We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace on terms which have been contemplated by some powers we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Struggle, Sacrifice

  Thomas Jefferson's letter to George Rogers Clark, founders.archives.gov. December 25, 1780.

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