Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

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

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

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

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.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

“I havent failed. Ive just found 10,000 ways that dont work.”

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”

“Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.”

“All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”

“I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.”