Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 31

• I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demigods.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Sorry, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.228

  5 Copy quote

• It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Guilt, President

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1853). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.399

  11 Copy quote

• Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.

  Thomas Jefferson

  War, Justice, Humanity

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.21, Rowman & Littlefield

  17 Copy quote

• Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peculiar, Paper, Notable

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

  60 Copy quote

• The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Loss, Stuff, Firsts

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private : Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State”, p.100

  8 Copy quote

• So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Done, Intention

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.135

  8 Copy quote

• I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Use, Fewer

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.263

  8 Copy quote

• I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Humility, Exercise, Power

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.416, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, America, Giving

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson memorial association of the United States (1907). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson”

  8 Copy quote

• letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilisation.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Letters, Lasts

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence”, p.303

  8 Copy quote

• I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Men, Light

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretarry of state”, p.263

  12 Copy quote

• Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Independent, Garden

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.62, Rowman & Littlefield

  15 Copy quote

• Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ocean, Passion, Commitment

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.32, Cambridge University Press

  8 Copy quote

• Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Promise, President, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence”, p.517

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

• Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, People, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson, J. Jefferson Looney (2004). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815”, p.212, Princeton University Press

  14 Copy quote

• Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen, people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.

  Thomas Jefferson

  People, Peculiar, Earth

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.182, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Often Is, Views, Public Opinion

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

  8 Copy quote

• The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Principles, Spirit

  Thomas Jefferson, Barbara B. Oberg (1950). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 29: 1 March 1796 to 31 December 1797”, p.271, Princeton University Press

  24 Copy quote

• My construction of the constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Independent, Different, Action

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.325

  8 Copy quote

• God has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Fall, Rights, Acting

  Thomas Jefferson (1884). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Published by Order of Congress from the Original Manuscripts Deposited in the Department of State”

  8 Copy quote

• If NATURE has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea... No one possesses the less, because every other possess the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Creativity, Thinking, Light

  Letter to Isaac McPherson, 13 Aug. 1813

  9 Copy quote

• History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Ambition, Past

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia II, Correspondence 1782-1786”, p.64, Cosimo, Inc.

  8 Copy quote

• If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be ... The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth, Men, People

  Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816.

  8 Copy quote

• None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army

  Thomas Jefferson

  Army, Gun Rights, Standing

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.166, Algora Publishing

  7 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

John Adams

George Washington

James Madison

Benjamin Franklin

Alexander Hamilton

Abraham Lincoln

Thomas Paine

Theodore Roosevelt