Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Wealth

• It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Happiness, Work

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.100, Rowman & Littlefield

• Never spend your money before you have earned it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Money, Debt Free, Owing A Debt

• Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Real, Silly, Garden

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.252

• 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

• Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Wealth, Oppression

• Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Weed, Country, Marijuana

• 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

• Stock dealers and banking companies, by the aid of a paper system, are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing presses, which their wealth commands and by any other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Character, Mean

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

• There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Aristocracy, Ingredients

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.187, Cambridge University Press

• The best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of the first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Kindness, Vegetables

  Thomas Jefferson, Julian Parks Boyd, Lyman Henry Butterfield, Charles T. Cullen (1950). “Papers of Thomas Jefferson”

• This doctrine ['that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are we must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers']is the genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State, the tenants of which finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations and monopolies of honors, wealth and power, and fear every change as endangering the comforts they now hold.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Father, Men, Honor

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.570, Library of America

• 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

• We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Fighting, Sea

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816”, p.241, Cosimo, Inc.

• Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Character, Way, Wealth

• I shall rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages; for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Attachment, America

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs Corespondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson Late, President of the United States: Now First Published the Original Manuscripts”, p.312

• Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Hands, Essentials, Aristocracy

  Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.30

• Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  People, Alarms, Principles

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.439, Penguin

• You have lived longer than I have and perhaps may have formed a different judgment on better grounds; but my observations do not enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth. In general I believe the decisions of the people, in a body, will be more honest and more disinterested than those of wealthy men.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Integrity, Believe, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.278, Penguin

• 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

• The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe, because the corrupting of the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth, and public ones cannot be provided but by levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, People, Safe

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.259, Cambridge University Press

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