Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was an author and a politician known for his liberalism and the Declaration of Independence. He also served in various capacities in the American Revolution.
Jefferson’s father died when he was very young, and 17-year old Jefferson had to work for his family to help support them. He taught classes at a school founded by other members of his family. He also worked on his farm while continuing to teach. He still didn’t have enough money to pay off all of his debt, so he started teaching law at George Wythe’s School of Law, where he became a lawyer himself.
He later became involved in politics and served as governor of Virginia between 1780-1781 before becoming the United States’ third president in 1801
Read out the 130 most famous Thomas Jefferson quotes
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
“Never spend your money before you have earned it.”
“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
“Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.”
“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.”
“Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.”
“Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the general progress of the human mind.”
“But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.”
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”
“A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.”
“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”
“A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.”
“With your talents and industry, with science, and that steadfast honesty, which eternally pursues right, regardless of consequences, you may promise yourself everything but health, without which there is no happiness.”
“One man with courage is a majority.”
“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.”
“Delay is preferable to error.”
“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
“Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.”
“Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day.”
“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.”
“Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.”
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.”
“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”
“No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.”
“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.”
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
“Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”
“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”
“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”
“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”
“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”
“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”
“Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.”
“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”
“Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.”
“I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.”
“Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.”
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
“Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.”
“My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.”
“There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”
“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.”
“When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.”
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”
“One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.”
“Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”
“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 like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
“Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”
“Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.”
“There is not a truth existing which I fear… or would wish unknown to the whole world.”
“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”
“I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
“Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.”
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.”
“To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.”
“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
“Taste cannot be controlled by law.”
“Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.”
“For people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.”
“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”
“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”
“The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.”
“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?”
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
“Take care of your cents: dollars will take care of themselves.”
“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”
“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. ”
“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.”
“For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.”
“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.”
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.”
“If you want something you’ve never had you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”
“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
“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.”
“It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.”
“Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.”
“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.”
“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.”
“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. ”
“I cannot live without books.”
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
“Good wine is a necessity of life for me.”
“Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
“A little rebellion is good now and then.”
“But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.”
“A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”
“It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.”
“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 pocket nor breaks my leg.”
“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government ”
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
“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.”
“An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.”
“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
“The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.”
“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 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.”
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”
“I cannot live without books.”
“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”
“As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.”
“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.”
