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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

3rd U.S. President

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Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes

“We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.-Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.”

IfsHumanityJusticeLibertyGenerationsHonorCostSucceedSlaveryGuiltEndureSurrenderInnocentAncestorContestsBondagePosterityHereditaryWretchednessInfamyGallantResigning
Book:Jefferson Himself: The Personal Narrative of a Many-Sided American
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“He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.”

IfsMenHas BeensMadeMatterReligionMoralObjectsMoralityOne ManRelativeDestinedPitiful
Book:Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States
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“I see,... and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power... It is but too evident that the three ruling branches of [the Federal government] are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.”

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Book:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson
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“That this privilege of giving or of withholding our monies is an important barrier against the undue exertion of prerogative, which if left altogether without control may be exercised to our great oppression; and all history shews how efficacious is its intercession for redress of grievances and re-establishment of rights, and how improvident would be the surrender of so powerful a mediator”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

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Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson
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“The earth belongs to the living. No man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the payment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the use of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living. No generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence if possible, from social life. The good are rare enough at best. There is no reason to subdivide them by artificial lines. But whether we shall ever be able so far to perfect the principles of society as that political opinions shall, in its intercourse, be as inoffensive as those of philosophy, mechanics, or any other, may well be doubted.”

IfsWellsMayStillsReasonEnoughPhilosophyWould BeAblePoliticalEvilSocialLinesPerfectEffortLibertyOpinionPrinciplesInfluencePhilosopherWorthyNo ReasonArtificialPatriotMechanicDissentIntercourseSocial LifeDespotismDoubtedLethargyDissensionPolitical Opinions
Book:Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence
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