“We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“سلطة ضخمة و قوية جدا توفر لك كل ما تطلبه ، هى حكومة قادرة على سلب كل شئ منك . التاريخ يقول انه كلما زادت قوة السلطات نقصت الحرية”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“We took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.
The Ambassador [of Tripoli] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“New York, like London, seems to be a cloacina [toilet] of all the depravities of human nature.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“[Christianity is] the most ... perverted system that ever shone on man.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I hope we shall ... crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“If you want something you've never had
You must be willing to do something you've never done.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
