Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 – 4 July 1826) was the third president of the United States (1801–1809), author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), a political philosopher, and one of the most influential founders of the United States.
Found 188 thoughts of Thomas Jefferson
Political interest can never be separated in the long run from moral right.
Thomas Jefferson
The happiest moments of my life have a been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.
Thomas Jefferson
The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.
Thomas Jefferson
Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Thomas Jefferson
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
Thomas Jefferson
It was more in our spirit to let things come to rights by the plain dictates of common sense than by the practice of any artifices.
Thomas Jefferson
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.
Thomas Jefferson
It is the great parent of science and of virtue: and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free.
Thomas Jefferson
I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.
Thomas Jefferson
The rights of human nature are deeply wounded by this infamous practice of slavery.
Thomas Jefferson
The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of members is given them in a greater or lesser degree. It may be strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body. This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.
Thomas Jefferson
Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential.
Thomas Jefferson
Most virtues when carried beyond certain bonds degenerate into vices.
Thomas Jefferson
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Thomas Jefferson
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
Thomas Jefferson
The Giver of life gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness.
Thomas Jefferson
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.
Thomas Jefferson
