Thomas Jefferson Of Quotations

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

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.

I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.

If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness.

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

The only security of all is in a free press.

The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...

The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

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.

It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By a universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.

The construction applied . . . to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power . . . ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.

The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of Kings.

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.

All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The constitution of the United States is the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

The days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning.

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.

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.

Question boldly even the existence of God.

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.

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.