Thomas Jefferson

A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry.

Exercise and application produce order in our affairs health of body cheerfulness of mind and these make us precious to our friends.

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

Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.

If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done.

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

I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Democracy is 51 of the people taking away the rights of the other 49.

Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

The greatest service that can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

I cannot live without books.

A little rebellion now and then is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

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

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

Although a republican government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its momentum becomes irresistible.

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.

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.

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

Debt and revolution are inseparable as cause and effect.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

Coffee the favorite drink of the civilized world.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

Happiness is the aim of life. Virtue is the foundation of happiness. Utility is the test of virtue. If the wise be the happy man as the sages say he must be virtuous too for without virtue happiness cannot be.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it.

A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Money not morality is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

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

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth good morals and happiness.

If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

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

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

All we can do is to make the best of our friends love and cherish what is good in them and keep out of the way of what is bad but no more think of rejecting them for it than of throwing away a piece of music for a flat passage or two.

Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

The superiority of chocolate both for health and nourishment will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain.

It is in the love of ones family only that heartfelt happiness is known.

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.

Delay is preferable to error.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance of morbid minds enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

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.

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history beauty and in the point of Life.

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.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

The earth belongs to the living not to the dead.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only object of good government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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

The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.

The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.