Thomas Jefferson Peace Quotations

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

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

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

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind.

I value peace, and I should unwillingly see any event take place which would render war a necessary resource.

Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.

I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.

We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities.

The evils which of necessity encompass the life of man are sufficiently numerous. Why should we add to them by voluntarily distressing and destroying one another? Peace, brothers, is better than war. In a long and bloody war, we lose many friends, and gain nothing. Let us then live in peace and friendship together, doing to each other all the good we can.

One war, such as that of our Revolution, is enough for one life.

Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.

That peace, safety, and concord may be the portion of our native land, and be long enjoyed by our fellow-citizens, is the most ardent wish of my heart, and if I can be instrumental in procuring or preserving them, I shall think I have not lived in vain.

You have not been mistaken in supposing my views and feeling to be in favor of the abolition of war. Of my dispos[i]tion to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, perhaps, than it has approved. I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the dispos[i]tion to war; but of its abolition I despair.

Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that.

Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.

It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice

Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility.

Peace is our passion.

Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace