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Thomas Jefferson Quotes

1743–1826 United States

Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 – 4 July 1826) was author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1777), founder of the University of Virginia (1819), the third president of the United States (1801–1809), a political philosopher, editor of Jefferson's Bible (1819), and one of the most influential founders of the United States.

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Also known as: Jefferson, Jefferson, Thomas, Thomas jefferson, Jeffersonian

Random Thomas Jefferson quote

349 quotes

Bank paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.

Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself.

Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error.

I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson (1988)

There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as of duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only.

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.

Letter to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval) (1816)

In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

letter to Tench Coxe (1799)

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art.

Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)

That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779)

The good old Dominion, the blessed mother of us all.

Thoughts on Lotteries (1826)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Jefferson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.