Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

“The wolf was sick, he vowed a monk to be - But when he got well, a wolf once more was he”

“Im nothing but a lone wolf, misunderstood and labeled to be dangerous.”

“A fox is a wolf who sends flowers.”

“Give so much time for the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.”

“He who knows best knows how little he knows”

“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”

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

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.

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. 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... 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.]

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.

Do you want to know who you are? Dont ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.

I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.

They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.

Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Lockes argument.

A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.