“I don't want them to kill no hog . . . . I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet.”
“I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence
“Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.”
Source: Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness
“I have so much confidence in the good sense of man, and his qualifications for self-government, that I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts
“Every man's reason is his own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority, will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed.”
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
“If virtuous, the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts
“The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.”
Source: The Essential Jefferson
“We ought not to schismatize on either men or measures. Principles alone can justify that.”
Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816
“With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution
“Every man has a commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error.”
Source: Jefferson, magnificent populist
“By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence
“It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state
“In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time.”
Source: Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson
“The division into whig and tory is founded in the nature of men; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into Whig and Tory.”
Source: Jefferson: Political Writings
“Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect.”
Source: Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson
“The evils which of necessity encompass the life of man are sufficiently numerous. Why should we add to them by voluntarily distressing and destroying one another? Peace, brothers, is better than war. In a long and bloody war, we lose many friends, and gain nothing. Let us then live in peace and friendship together, doing to each other all the good we can.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution
“Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson
“I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
“I join cordially in admiring and revering the Constitution of the United States, the result of the collected wisdom of our country. That wisdom has committed to us the important task of proving by example that a government, if organized in all its parts on the Representative principle unadulterated by the infusion of spurious elements, if founded, not in the fears & follies of man, but on his reason, on his sense of right, on the predominance of the social over his dissocial passions, may be so free as to restrain him in no moral right, and so firm as to protect him from every moral wrong.”
“I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.”
Source: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson
“The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most - for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?”
Source: The Essential Jefferson
“Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.”
Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798
“Still we did not expect to be without rubs and difficulties; and we have had them. First the detention of Western posts: then the coalition of Pilnitz, outlawing our commerce with France, and the British enforcement of the outlawry. In your day French depredations; in mine English, and the Berlin and Milan decrees: now the English orders of council, and the piracies they authorize. When these shall be over, it will the impressment of our seamen, or something else; and so we have gone on, and so we shall go on, puzzled and prospering beyond example in the history of man.”
Source: Jefferson: Political Writings
“I hope we shall prove how much happier for man the Quaker policy is, and that the life of the feeder is better than that of the fighter; and it is some consolation that the desolation by these maniacs of one part of the earth is the means of improving it in other parts. Let the latter be our office, and let us milk the cow, while the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the tail.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont
“The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.”
Source: Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait
“In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.”
Source: Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness
“The example of changing a constitution by assembling the wise men of the state, instead of assembling armies, will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had give them. The constitution, too, which was the result of our deliberation, is unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence
“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.”
Source: Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson
“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states...and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson, His Words and Vision
“Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.”
Source: Thomas Jefferson: His Words and Vision
“I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.”
Source: Jefferson: Political Writings
“The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible.”
“Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice.”
Source: Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson
“If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness.”
“The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of Kings.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
“An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.”
Source: Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson
“The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson
“Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson
“I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson
“If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged.”
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 equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.”
Source: Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness
“The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin. Reports and opinions while Secretary of State
“Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.”
Source: Jefferson: Writings
“I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state
“Those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from...instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience.”
“The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe, the sinks of voluntary misery.”
Source: Correspondence
“And Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences, whether we consider its subjects as furnishing the principal subsistence of life to man and beast, delicious varieties for our tables, refreshments from our orchards, the adornments of our flower-borders, shade and perfume of our groves, materials for our buildings, or medicaments for our bodies.”
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
“Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.”
Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence
