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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

3rd U.S. President

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Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

MenShouldMeanMomentsGovernmentReadingLeftPaperCapableShould HavePressesEvery ManNewspapersJournalismLatterFree SpeechFreedom Of SpeechPapersFreedom Of The PressFree PressNewspapers Journalism
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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“When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine. Why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ...Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.”

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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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“By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.”

ShouldMeanGovernmentEvilCasesRightsHonestStandingArmyPressesTrialsTyrannyCivil RightsDeclineCommerceDeclarationMonopolyJuryFreedom Of The PressFreedom Of ReligionFettersSuspensionCorpusTrial By JuryHabeas CorpusHonest Government
Book:Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way
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“To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement”

ThinkingMenShouldMindHumansMayLongSpiritSpeakConditionsReadyPressesPositive AtheismImprovementPreservesHuman Mind4th Of JulyMartyrdomFreedom Of The Press
Book:The Real Thomas Jefferson
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“I should . . . prefer swallowing one incomprehensibility rather than two. It requires one effort only to admit the single incomprehensibility of matter endowed with thought, and two to believe, first that of an existence called spirit, of which we have neither evidence nor idea, and then secondly how that spirit, which has neither extension nor solidity, can put material organs into motion.”

ShouldFirstsBelieveTwoIdeasMatterSpiritEffortExistenceMaterialsEvidenceFree WillOrgansExtensionsSwallowingSolidity
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson
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“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.”

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Book:The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin
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“Female education ... has occupied my attention so far only as the education of my own daughters ... I thought it essential to give them a solid education which might enable them, when become mothers, to educate their own daughters, and even to direct the course for sons, should their fathers be.”

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Book:The Essential Jefferson
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“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.”

ShouldMindWellsHas BeensRealDoneGovernmentMightLawNationsPartyLibertyCasesEnglandConstantPreparedWorthyOperationsPlotRebellionShamefulHabitualSuspensionInsurrectionCorpusHabeas Corpus
Book:Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers
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“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”

ShouldBodyGovernmentLibertyPrinciplesLimitsConstitutionDividedBalancedFoundersDespotismLimited GovernmentBill Of RightsFederalistLimiting GovernmentConstitutional RightsSeparation Of PowersBalance Of PowerRevolution Founding FathersConstitutional GovernmentPower GovernmentDivided GovernmentIndividual Power
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The future inhabitants of [both] the Atlantic and Mississippi states will be our sons. We think we see their happiness in their union, and we wish it. Events may prove otherwise; and if they see their interest in separating why should we take sides? God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better.”

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Book:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson
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“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce...”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

PeopleMenShouldFirstsMeanMomentsGovernmentReadingLeftOpinionObjectsPaperCapableShould HaveBasesEvery ManNewspapersJournalismLatterPapersFreedom Of The PressNewspapers JournalismReading Newspapers
Book:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson
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“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”

MenShouldTryingFirstsMayEndsReasonFactsActionFoundInterestingObjectsPressesExperimentsCivil RightsInvestigationFreedom Of SpeechShut UpAvenuesFreedom Of The PressAuthority And Responsibility
Book:Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts
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“I acknowledge that such a debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave-not even of a very large portion of it.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“A single good government becomes... a blessing to the whole earth, its welcome to the oppressed restraining within certain limits the measure of their oppressions. But should even this be counteracted by violence on the right of expatriation, the other branch of our example then presents itself for imitation: to rise on their rulers and do as we have done.”

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Book:The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 12: 1 September 1817 to 21 April 1818
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“Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment & enjoiment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.”

ShouldMayHas BeensLibertyBloodMankindCitizensExerciseEqualShould HaveFellowsWarmFranceInjuryEndeavorShould Have BeenAttainmentBeing MyselfZealot
Book:The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798
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“With your talents and industry, with science, and that steadfast honesty which eternally pursues right, regardless of consequences, you may promise yourself every thing-but health, without which there is no happiness. An attention to health then should take place of evey other object. The time necessary to secure this by active exercises, should be devoted to it in preference to every other pursuit.”

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Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.”

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Book:Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence
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“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.”

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Book:Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution
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“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

PeopleShouldHumansEarthLawPoliticalCoursesCausesNatureOpinionMankindEventsBandEqualRespectIndependenceAssumingConnectedSeparationDecentStationsDeclarationLaws Of NatureDeclaration Of IndependenceDeismJuly 4th 1776Unalienable RightsJuly 4Equal Respect
Author:Thomas Jefferson
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“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.”

ShouldDoneFactsNationsSoundAnswersOpinionPrinciplesPaperBenefitsPressesNewspapersMelancholyAbandonedFalsehoodRequestProstitutionSuppressionRestrainingMedia ControlTrue Fact
Book:Jefferson: Political Writings
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“If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's.”

IfsShouldHeartHas BeensCountryWisdomPoliticsEconomyRevolutionOur CountryLiberalismAmerican RevolutionHanging OnBayonetsGallows
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, "never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principal within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith."”

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Book:Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States
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“It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation . . . . Our interest will be to throw open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent to whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs.”

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Book:Notes on the State of Virginia
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