Thomas Jefferson's Famous Quotes
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will.
- Thomas Jefferson
Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety, and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished, all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered.
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. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on office, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
I hold it, that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
Taste cannot be controlled by law.
The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.
Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind.
It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.
When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil, while fretting and fuming only increase your own torments.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any.
I like the dreams for the future better than the history of the past.
I steer my bark with hope in my heart, leaving fear astern.
The hole and the patch should be commensurate.
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
-Thomas Jefferson
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
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