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...

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Delay is preferable to error.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

Let what will be said or done, preserve your sang froid immovably, and to every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language

The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I

On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.

A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their magistrate.

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform...

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

A professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution (the University of Virginia)

To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.

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.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on his...

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

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

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 second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

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

The good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army

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...

The only purpose of government is to protect the people.

Tranquility is the old man’s milk.

The loss of the battle of Waterloo was the salvation of France

It is amazing how much may be done if we are always doing.

The juries are our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.

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.

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a...

This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason...

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

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

There is not a truth existing which I fear… or would wish unknown to the whole world.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

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...

Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, then and only then will truth, prevail over fanaticism

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...