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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

3rd U.S. President

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Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes

“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”

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Book:A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
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“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

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Book:Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson
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“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.”

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Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”

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Book: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
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“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.”

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Book:The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814
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“We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.”

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Book:The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816
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“The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.”

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Book:The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence
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“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

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Book:Jefferson: Writings
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“‎We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have remover their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”

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Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.”

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Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson
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“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author”

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Book:Reports of Cases Determined in the General Court of Virginia: From 1730, to 1740; and from 1768, to 1772
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“[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.”

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Book:The portable Thomas Jefferson
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“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”

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Book:The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont
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