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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

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goall nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch...

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness...

The last appellation of aristocrats and democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.

To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.

Every man should be protected in his lawful acts, and be certain that no ex post facto law shall punish or endamage him for them.

Letter to Isaac McPherson (1813)

If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation, none.

The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated.

I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never therefore to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object.

Letter to Frances Wright (1825)

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Declaration of Independence (1776)

The greatest good we can do our country is to heal it’s party divisions & make them one people. I do not speak of their leaders who are incurable, but of the honest and well-intentioned body of the people.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe.

I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents...

While the art of printing is left to us science can never be retrograde; what is once acquired of real knowlege can never be lost.

Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want.

Let what will be said or done, preserve your sang-froid immovably, and to every obstacle, oppose patience, perseverance, and soothing language.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Attribution

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