“France, freed from that monster, Bonaparte, must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune give a preference to some other one, and the first choice of all not under those ties.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State
“The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.”
“I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are. There is scarcely an evil known in these countries, which may not be traced to their king, as its source, nor a good, which is not derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts
“From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox-hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the great council of the nation, well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse-jockey, a fox-hunter, an orator, or the honest advocate of my country's rights?”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
“The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling...I hope we shall...crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.”
“The protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require
that force should be interposed to a certain degree.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution
“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.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson
“It is an essential attribute of the jurisdiction of every country
to preserve peace, to punish acts in breach of it, and to restore property taken by force within
its limits.”
Source: Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph
“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.”
Source: Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States
“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion... We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half, for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion.”
Source: Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States
“It is highly interesting to our country, and it is the duty of its functionaries, to provide that every citizen in it should receive an education proportioned to the condition and pursuits of his life.”
Source: Early History of the University of Virginia: As Contained in the Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell, Hitherto Unpublished; with an Appendix, Consisting of Mr. Jefferson's Bill for a Complete System of Education and Other Illustrative Documents; and an Introduction, Comprising a Brief Historical Sketch of the University, and a Biographical Notice of Joseph C. Cabell
“Our [Virginia's] act for freedom of religion is extremely applauded. The Ambassadors and ministers of the several nations of Europe resident at this court have asked me copies of it to send to their sovereigns, and it is inserted at full length in several books now in the press; among others, in the new Encyclopédie. I think it will produce considerable good even in those countries where ignorance, superstition, poverty and oppression of body and mind in every form, are so firmly settled on the mass of the people, that their redemption from them can never be hoped.”
Source: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson
“The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so.”
Source: Jefferson: Political Writings
“If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country [Italy] its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.”
Source: The portable Thomas Jefferson
“The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.”
Source: Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait
“While learning the language in France a young man's morals, health and fortune are more irresistibly endangered than in any country of the universe.”
Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: March 1789 to 30 November 1789
“When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.”
“I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.”
Source: Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States
“I do love this people [the French] with all my heart, and think that with a better religion and a better form of government and their present governors their condition and country would be most enviable.”
“A country whose buildings are of wood, can never increase in its improvements to any considerable degree.... Whereas when buildings are of durable materials, every new edifice is an actual and permanent acquisition to the state, adding to its value as well as to its ornament.”
Source: Notes on the State of Virginia
“If you are obliged to neglect any thing, let it be your chemistry. It is the least useful and the least amusing to a country gentleman of all the ordinary branches of science.”
“If any doubt has arisen as to me, my country [Virginia] will have my political creed in the form of a "Declaration &c." which I was lately directed to draw. This will give decisive proof that my own sentiment concurred with the vote they instructed us to give.”
Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence
“In a virtuous and free state, no rewards can be so pleasing to sensible minds, as those which include the approbation of our fellow citizens. My great pain is, lest my poor endeavours should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: a biography in his own words
“The colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe. While Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, all other countries give it to the latter.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson
“Our ancestors ... possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice has placed them.”
Source: Memoirs, 1: Correspondence and Private Papers
“Men possessing minds of the first order and who have had opportunities of being known and of acquiring the general confidence do not abound in any country beyond the wants of the country.”
Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. IX (in 12 Volumes)
“Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country; and by taking in those who are not so, the able part of the body have their hands tied by the unable.”
Source: The Essential Jefferson
“They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont
“If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reform and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable.”
Source: Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait
“Merchants have no country.”
Source: Correspondence
“Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country.”
Source: Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson
“Stock dealers and banking companies, by the aid of a paper system, are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing presses, which their wealth commands and by any other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.”
Source: The Real Thomas Jefferson
“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. I knew that age well; I belonged to and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in Government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.”
“Should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.”
Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia II, Correspondence 1782-1786
“A true patriot will defend his country from its government.”
“If science produces no better fruits than tyranny... I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighbouring savages are.”
“I have done for my country and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.”
Source: Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait
“I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826
“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.”
“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.”
Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.”
“The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin
“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.”
Source: Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph
“I am a real Christian, that is to say, a cisciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator.”
“No country and no people can be free and ignorant at the same time.”
“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 to his own.”
Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814
“The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. --The Fruit Hunters”
“So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? — Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.”
