“A habilidade mais valiosa é aquela de jamais usar duas palavras quando uma apenas basta.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“There is a ripeness of time for death,
regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and make room for
another growth. When we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt... merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults?...Or shall it rather be appropriated to the improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“the measure of society is how it treats the weakest members”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“[Christianity is] the most ... perverted system that ever shone on man.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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 of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it."
―
Thomas Jefferson
“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I felt enough of the effect of withdrawing from the world then, to see that it led to an antisocial and misanthropic state of mind, which severely punished him who gives in to it. And it will be a lesson I never shall forget as to myself.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.”
―
Thomas Jefferson