thomas-jefferson Quotes About principles Page 2

“But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.”

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”

Men Government Law Justice Principles Constitution Trials Civil Rights Jury Anchors Rule Of Law Property Rights Trial By Jury Legal Rights Jury Duty Nullification Judge And Jury Trial Lawyers

Book:The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence

Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association-the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

Source: The Life and Writings of ...

“Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone.”

Principles Subjects Particular Positive Atheism Civil Rights Accountability

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“It is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.”

Enough Government Purpose Order Religious Principles Break Teaching Positive Atheism Civil Rights Officers Interfere Break Out Religion And Government Propagation

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness.”

Ifs Men Wells Government Lasts Principles Failing Duty Weakness Civil Rights Former Good Man

Book:The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814

Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814

“It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so.”

Ifs Thinking Self Government Able Principles Citizens Civil Rights Preserves Firm Self-government

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

“Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible.”

Ifs Long Lasts Principles Watches Produce Duty Citizens Institutions Notion Corruption Civil Rights Manners Good Citizen

Book:The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826

Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826

“Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.”

Source: Correspondence

“Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.”

Source: Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States

“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.”

Men Long Reason Politics Principles Majority Every Man Preserves Prosperous Umpires Acquiescence

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

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

“We ought not to schismatize on either men or measures. Principles alone can justify that.”

Men Politics Principles Ought Justify

Book:The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816

Source: The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816

“I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.”

Ifs Believe Mean War Certain Nations Peace Principles Effects Produce Concerts Coercion

Book:Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution

Source: Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution

“To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood.”

Source: Jefferson: Political Writings

“The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor; and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispassionate and steady conduct, will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony.”

Source: Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson

“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.”

“We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

Source: Jefferson: Political Writings

“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.”

Men Giving Enough Character Political Energy Principles Virtue Effects Decided Encounters Hostility Public Life Adverse

Book:Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

Source: Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

“[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.”

Ifs Two Form Principles Danger Republican Constitution Unions Driven Separation Preserves Sheets Distribution Anchors Separation Of Powers Distribution Of Power

Book:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson

Source: Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson

“The principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government.”

Ifs Government Spirit Term Principles Cases Ought Direct Function Constitution Separation Executives Judiciary Free Government Separation Of Powers Executive Branch

Book:The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 29: 1 March 1796 to 31 December 1797

Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 29: 1 March 1796 to 31 December 1797

“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”

Has Beens Different Names Differences Opinion Principles Republican Brethren Federalist Differences Of Opinion Different Names

Book:The Essential Jefferson

Source: The Essential 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.”

Men States Law Courses Principles Records Rights Equal Independence Engaged Enjoyment Equal Rights Charter Natural Rights Inalienable Rights

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson

“It is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow their end.”

Giving Mean Ends Used Principles Inalienable Rights

Book:Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretarry of state

Source: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretarry of state

“When we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of society. I believe that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force.”

Source: The Essential Jefferson

“Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion.”

Way Principles Cases Conclusion

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.”

People Wealth Principles Lays Surrender Frightened Alarms

Book:The portable Thomas Jefferson

Source: The portable Thomas Jefferson

“The people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositaries of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the free principles of the government.”

People Should Sometimes Government Purpose Principles Rights Honest Safe Function Administration Sufficient Systematic Consent Of The Governed

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson

“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.”

Knows Men Religion Given President Principles Trouble Subjects Mines Particular This Life Accountability Foe

Book:The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence

Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence

“The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles.”

Different Political Purpose House Interest Principles Influence Introducing Legislation

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson

“"It astonishes me to find... [that so many] of our countrymen... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty... which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries."”

“I sincerely join you in abjuring all political connection with every foreign power; and tho I cordially wish well to the progress of liberty in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.”

Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 31: 1 February 1799 to 31 May 1800

“Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.”

Law Moral Principles Written Stage Morality Moral Principles

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson

“SIR,-Your letter of February the 18th came to hand on the 1st instant; and the request of the history of my physical habits would have puzzled me not a little, had it not been for the model with which you accompanied it, of Doctor Rush's answer to a similar inquiry. I live so much like other people, that I might refer to ordinary life as a history of my own. Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating very little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principle diet.”

Source: Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers

“The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government”

States Government America United Principles United States United States Of America Unlimited Submission Composing States Rights

Book:The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and '99: With Jefferson's Original Draught Thereof. Also, Madison's Report, Calhoun's Address, Resolutions of the Several States in Relation to State Rights. With Other Documents in Support of the Jeffersonian Doctrines of '98

Source: The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and '99: With Jefferson's Original Draught Thereof. Also, Madison's Report, Calhoun's Address, Resolutions of the Several States in Relation to State Rights. With Other Documents in Support of the Jeffersonian Doctrines of '98

“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.”

Evil Lost Principles Growing Possibility Corruption Useless Voting Republic Corrections Restoring Tyranny Founding Fathers

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us.”

Should Two Done Justice Principles Revolution Equality Injury American Revolution

Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson

Source: The writings of Thomas Jefferson

“The executive, in our government is not the sole, it is scarcely the principle, object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislature is the most formidable dread at present and will be for many years. That of the executive will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote period.”

Years Government Turns Principles Objects Periods Tyranny Voting Executives Dread Sole Legislature Formidable

Book:Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph

Source: Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph

“I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest.”