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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

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own.

To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

Letter to Thomas Cooper (1810)

I never consider a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.

I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.

As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

I say, that this free exercise of reason is all I ask for the vindication of the character of Jesus.

But of all things, they least think of subjecting themselves to the will of one man.

Letter to Francis W. Gilmer (1816)

It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both.

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.

Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Autobiography (1821)

You will next read the new testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus.

Letter to Peter Carr (1787)

If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.

Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.

Attribution

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