Thomas Jefferson

“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.”

“The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.”

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

“If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield no...”

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

“The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.”

“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”

“There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”

“Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.”

“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”

“I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.”

“The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.”

“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.”

“Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.”

“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.”

“Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.”

“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.”

“The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.”

“One man with courage is a majority.”