Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1777), founder of the University of Virginia (1819), the third president of the United States (1801–1809). These inspirational Thomas Jefferson quotes will change your life.
Best Thomas Jefferson Quotes
- “When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Taste cannot be controlled by law.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.” – Thomas Jefferson
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“A true patriot will defend his country from its government.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The plough is to the farmer what the wand is to the sorcerer. Its effect is really like sorcery.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice” – Thomas Jefferson
- “No society can make a perpetual constitution… The earth belongs always to the living generation.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Most men die at age 25, but aren’t buried until 70.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers.” – Thomas Jefferson
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“Free men do not ask permission to bear arms” – Thomas Jefferson
- “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.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.” – Thomas Jefferson
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“That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Never trouble another for what you can do yourself” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Wine brightens the life and thinking of anyone” – Thomas Jefferson
- “War…is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.” – Thomas Jefferson
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“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.” – Thomas Jefferson
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“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Without virtue, happiness cannot be.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Paper is poverty, it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “A strong body makes the mind strong.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “The Christian God is a being of terrific character – cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Power is not alluring to pure minds.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.” – Thomas Jefferson
