Thomas Jefferson

“I cannot live without books.”

“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.”

“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?”

“One man with courage is a majority.”

“Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”

“It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.”

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

“To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.”

“Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.”

“If you want something you've never had You must be willing to do something you've never done.”

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”

“The hole and the patch should be commensurate.”

“My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.”

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

“The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.”

“Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.”

“The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.”

“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

“A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life: 1. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day. 2. Never trouble another with what you can do yourself. 3. Never spend your money before you have it. 4. Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you. 5. Ta...”

“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.”

“Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.”

“We never repent of having eaten too little.”

“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.”

“No government ought to be without censors: and where the press is free, no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth either in religion, law, or politics. I think it as honorable to the gover...”

“Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.”

“If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.”

“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”

“Taste cannot be controlled by law.”

“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”

“I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.”

“All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.”

“A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.”

“The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.”

“Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.”

“In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.”

“I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.”

“4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call t...”

“I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.”

“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.”

“I write nothing for publication, and last of all things should it be on the subject of religion. On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstrac...”

“I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.”

“They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.”

“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”

“It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”

“Delay is preferable to error.”

“Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.”

“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.”

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”

“A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.”

“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.”

“There exists indeed an opposition to it [building of UVA, Jefferson's secular college] by the friends of William and Mary, which is not strong. The most restive is that of the priests of the different religious sects, who dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of day-light; and scow...”

“Speaking one day to Monsieur de Buffon, on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on the footing with those of the kitchen. I think it, on the contrary, among the most useful of sciences, and big with future d...”

“It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new...”

“The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.”

“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”

“This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

“The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt... merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults?...Or shall it rather be appropriated to the improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, an...”

“No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.”

“My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.”

“Never spend your money before you have earned it.”

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.”

“I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”

“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

“The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”

“If God is just, I tremble for my country.”