Thomas Jefferson
You have not been mistaken in supposing my views and feeling to be in favor of the abolition of war. Of my dispos[i]tion to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, perhaps, than it has approved. I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the dispos[i]tion to war; but of its abolition I despair.Collection: Peace
Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one's family and affairs.Collection: Happiness
Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family.Collection: Father
But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.Collection: Night
The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.Collection: Art
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states...and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.Collection: Independent
Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.Collection: Religious
Some other natural rights... [have] not yet entered into any declaration of rights.Collection: Rights
If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness.Collection: Pursuit Of Happiness
I sincerely pray that all the members of the human family may, in the time prescribed by the Father of us all, find themselves securely established in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness.Collection: Father
An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.Collection: Equality
Of distinction by birth or badge, [Americans] had no more idea than they had of the mode of existence in the moon or planets. They had heard only that there were such, and knew that they must be wrong.Collection: Moon
Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw; formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.Collection: Beautiful
To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse.Collection: Inalienable Rights
Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man.Collection: Men
The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.Collection: Mean
I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.Collection: Men
The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.Collection: Giving Up
Circumstances sometimes require, that rights the most unquestionable should be advanced with delicacy.Collection: Rights
All... natural rights may be abridged or modified in [their] exercise by law.Collection: Exercise
Laws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.Collection: Law
No one has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature.Collection: Exercise
The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.Collection: Men
The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself.Collection: Heart
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone.Collection: Religion
But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.Collection: Wise
For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.Collection: Truth
Never use two words when one will do.Collection: Two
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.Collection: Believe
What we learn to do, we learn by doing.Collection: Inspirational
The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Men
An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.Collection: 4th Of July
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.Collection: Freedom
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.Collection: Men
Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential.Collection: Government
The dead should not rule the livingCollection: Should
The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Reading
The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.Collection: Communication
I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box.Collection: Thinking
The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.Collection: Heart
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.Collection: Government
Exercise and application produce order in our affairs, health of body, cheerfulness of mind, and these make us precious to our friendsCollection: Motivational
Every generation needs a new revolution.Collection: Change
Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, etc. Consider every act of this kind as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth.Collection: Grateful
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.Collection: Thinking
One insult pocketed soon produces another.Collection: War
The earth belongs to the living. No man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the payment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the use of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living. No generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.Collection: Men