Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 32

• The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen states in the course of eleven years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent insurrections.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Country, Thinking

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States”, p.277

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• 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”

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• But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Friendship, Happiness

  B. L. Rayner, Thomas Jefferson (1834). “Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait”, p.423

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• Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Smooth, Handle

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• Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Failure, Government, Giving

  Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “Paine and Jefferson on Liberty”, p.22, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Peace, War, Should Have

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.117

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• In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Defense, Arms, Violence

  Thomas Jefferson (1950). “The papers of Thomas Jefferson”

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• 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

  Freedom, Ideas, Light

  Letter to Isaac McPherson, 13 Aug. 1813

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• The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Family, Happiness, Success

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

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• A room without books is like a life without meaning.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Rooms, Lovers

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• The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Men, People

  Letter to Charles Yancey, 6 Jan. 1816

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• I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Age, Firsts, Grows

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1786-1787”, p.307, Cosimo, Inc.

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• By making this wine known to the public, I have rendered my country as great a service as if I had enabled it to pay back the national debt.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Food, Wine

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• We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wine, Europe, United States

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.315

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• If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Government, People

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

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• How sublime to look down on the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet!

  Thomas Jefferson

  Nature, Rain, Feet

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.49

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• Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Office, Whiskey, Claims

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.285

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• Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Age, Ark

  1816 Letter to Samuel Kercheval, 12 Jul.

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• Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, etc. Consider every act of this kind as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Grateful, Exercise, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson (1963). “The Thomas Jefferson Papers”, Dodd

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• I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Thinking, Government, Europe

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.363, Cambridge University Press

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• Experience has proved to us that a dollar of silver disappears for every dollar of paper emitted.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Dollars, Paper, Silver

  Thomas Jefferson (1856). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.268

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• No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Kings, Men, Race

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph”

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• The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Workout, Children

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.130, Hackett Publishing

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• It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please . . . . Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Mean, Evil, Judging

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• It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Motivational, Democracy, Majority

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.363, Cambridge University Press

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