Thomas Jefferson July Quotations

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them

The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty.

To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. The palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.

Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

. . . in the full tide of successful experiment.

I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.

I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living. . . . We seem not to perceive that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independent nation is to another. . . . The earth belongs always to the living generations.

To make us one nation as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in Domestic ones gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general [national] and particular [state] governments.