Thomas Jefferson

“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.”

“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 sp...”

“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.”

“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.”

“I agree with yours of the 22d that a professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution. but we cannot always do what is absolutely best. those with whom we act, entertaining...”

“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 mone...”

“I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintaine...”

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

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pock...”

“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”

“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”

“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

“God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men.”

“All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”

“I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.”

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”

“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”

“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 o...”

“… the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and err...”