“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.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“If you want something you've never had
You must be willing to do something you've never done.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance. Even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In, short, the flames kindled on the 4th 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 and all who work for them.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“A machine for making revolutions is doing precisely the wrong thing at just the right time.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”
―
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
“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest 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. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
