Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

No people who are ignorant can be truly free.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

The price of liberty is constant vigilance.

There exists indeed an opposition to it [building of UVA, Jefferson’s secular college] by the friends of William and Mary, which is not strong. The most restive is that of the priests of the different...

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

The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.(A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the...

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

If Americans ever allow banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless

The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion of principle but that of gain

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it as earned.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

The rights of human nature are deeply wounded by this infamous practice of slavery.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

The advertisements are the most truthful part of a newspaper.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as...

Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to John Holmes on the Missouri Statehood Question – April 20, 1820I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to...

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

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

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

My creed had been formed on unsheathing the sword at Lexington

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games...

It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately. – Thomas Jefferson

I see no comfort in outliving one’s friends, and remaining a mere monument of the times which are past.

It is, however, an evil for which there is no remedy, our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost

In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the...

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

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it’s laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right...

I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more.”(Letter to John Banister, Jr., June 19, 1787)

The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of...

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

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

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government…

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form let them stand undisturbed as monuments to the safety with which error of opinion may be...

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.