Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

No people who are ignorant can be truly free.

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

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 religious sects, who dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of day-light; and scowl on it the...

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

Nothing gives a person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Most virtues when carried beyond certain bonds degenerate into vices.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens

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.

Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.

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

Offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct

The most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

I served with General Washington in the Legislature of Virginia… and… with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.

He who knows best knows how little he knows

Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights.

the man that reads nothing is better educated than the man that reads nothing more than newspapers

That peace, safety, and concord may be the portion of our native land, and be long enjoyed by our fellow-citizens, is the most ardent wish of my heart, and if I can be instrumental in procuring or preserving them, I shall think I have not lived in va

While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato’s Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?

I think we are a more dangerous team with what we can do this season,

Our constitution is a peace establishment it is not calculated for war. War would endanger its existence.

Believing that happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used

Equal rights for all, special privileges for none

If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else

The execution of the laws is more important than the making them

Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

One single object…[will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.

I believe that justice is instinct and innate; the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing.

I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make be the difference of price what it may

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

The flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them

My views and feelings are in favor of the abolition of war–and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair.

The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.

I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in

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 tolerated where reason is left free to combat it

If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is, that we should have nothing to do with conquest

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

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

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.