“I am convinced our own happiness requires that we should continue to mix with the world, and to keep pace with it as it goes. "
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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 fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.”
―
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
“An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude
from achieving his goal.
Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.”
―
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
“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry...”
―
Thomas Jefferson
