Quotes by Jefferson, Thomas

"It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour."

Jefferson, Thomas on law and lawyers
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty
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"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty
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"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty   

"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty   

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty   

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."

Jefferson, Thomas on liberty   

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual."

Jefferson, Thomas on lies and lying
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"Always take hold of things by the smooth handle."

Jefferson, Thomas on life   

"When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred."

Jefferson, Thomas on anger
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"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry."

Jefferson, Thomas on argument   

"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."

Jefferson, Thomas on aristocracy   

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

Jefferson, Thomas on luck
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"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

Jefferson, Thomas on luck
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"In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue."

Jefferson, Thomas on manners   

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"What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Jefferson, Thomas on art
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"A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

Jefferson, Thomas on medicine
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"I have not observed men's honesty to increase with their riches."

Jefferson, Thomas on money   

"Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly."

Jefferson, Thomas on morality
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"I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely happier for it."

Jefferson, Thomas on newspapers
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"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter."

Jefferson, Thomas on newspapers   

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers."

Jefferson, Thomas on newspapers
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"The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper."

Jefferson, Thomas on newspapers
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"It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquillity and occupation which give happiness."

Jefferson, Thomas on occupation
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"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

Jefferson, Thomas on opinions
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"Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

Jefferson, Thomas on opinions   

"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."

Jefferson, Thomas on pain
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"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it."

Jefferson, Thomas on peace   

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"While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?"

Jefferson, Thomas on philosophers and philosophy   

"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it."

Jefferson, Thomas on pleasure
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"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

Jefferson, Thomas on attitude
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"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."

Jefferson, Thomas on bankers and banking
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"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."

Jefferson, Thomas on bankers and banking
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"When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property."

Jefferson, Thomas on politics   

"Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them."

Jefferson, Thomas on politics   

"I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others."

Jefferson, Thomas on power
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"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Jefferson, Thomas on power
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"No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it."

Jefferson, Thomas on president   

"Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold."

Jefferson, Thomas on pride   

"In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current."

Jefferson, Thomas on principles
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