Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.Collection: Age
Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.Collection: Wisdom
It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.Collection: Happiness
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.Collection: Politics
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.Collection: Equality
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.Collection: Experience
So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.Collection: Wisdom
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.Collection: Friendship
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.Collection: Government
We never repent of having eaten too little.Collection: Diet
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.Collection: War
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.Collection: Truth
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.Collection: Money
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.Collection: Best
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.Collection: God
I cannot live without books.Collection: Education
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.Collection: Government
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.Collection: Government
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.Collection: War
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.Collection: Religion
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.Collection: Freedom
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.Collection: Government
If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.Collection: Government
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Government
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.Collection: Good
Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.Collection: Education
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.Collection: God
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.Collection: Cool
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?Collection: Friendship
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.Collection: Happiness
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.Collection: Trust
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.Collection: Anger
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.Collection: Politics
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.Collection: Politics
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.Collection: Men
He who knows best knows how little he knows.Collection: Best
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.Collection: History
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.Collection: Hope
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.Collection: Nature
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.Collection: War
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.