Thomas Jefferson
I duly acknowledge that I have gone through a long life, with fewer circumstances of affliction than are the lot of most men. Uninterrupted health, a competence for every reasonable want, usefulness to my fellow-citizens, a good portion of their esteem, no complaint against the world which has sufficiently honored me, and above all, a family which has blessed me by their affections, and never by their conduct given me a moment's pain.Collection: Pain
Every constitution..., and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years [a generation]. If it be enforced longer, it is anact of force, and not of right.Collection: Years
I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living": that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.Collection: Rights
I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.Collection: Generations
I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.Collection: Country
Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent.Collection: Government
I do love this people [the French] with all my heart, and think that with a better religion and a better form of government and their present governors their condition and country would be most enviable.Collection: Country
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.Collection: Philosophy
The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.Collection: 4th Of July
But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.Collection: Men
Our attachment to no nation on earth should supplant our attachment to liberty.Collection: Attachment
If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi... in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all.Collection: War
We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.Collection: Government
Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.Collection: Giving Up
Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you.Collection: Giving Up
The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.Collection: Men
I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Kings
Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will; collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.Collection: Change
For Heaven's sake discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum.Collection: Judging
I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.Collection: Thinking
What i value more than all things, good humor.Collection: Good Humor
I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armiesCollection: Army
The States should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount for paper.Collection: Rights
The same facts impress us differently.Collection: Facts
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.Collection: Inspirational
I believe that justice is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society.Collection: Wise
Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.Collection: Honesty
Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.Collection: Ends
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.Collection: Believe
Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion.Collection: Principles
The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.Collection: Believe
No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.Collection: Friendship
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.Collection: Giving
... I am not afraid of priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance on whom their interested duperies were to be played off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develop itself.Collection: Religious
Creeds have been the bane of the Christian church ... made of Christendom a slaughter-house.Collection: Christian
No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.Collection: Writing
The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.Collection: Rights
The juries are our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.Collection: Law
Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable for, not the rightness, but the uprightness of the decisionCollection: Heaven
Honesty, disinterestedness and good nature are indispensable to procure the esteem and confidence of those with whom we live, and on whose esteem our happiness depends.Collection: Confidence
My affections were first for my own country, then, generally, for all mankindCollection: Country
Health is the requisite after moralityCollection: Health
Never put off your massage until tomorrow if you can get it today.Collection: Today
We should talk over the lessons of the day, or lose them in Music, Chess, or the merriments of our family companions.Collection: Lessons
Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.Collection: Gratitude
We might have been a free and great people together.Collection: People