“If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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
“Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it's protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“never trust a man who won't accept that there is more than one way to spell a word
Paraphrased”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.
―
Thomas Jefferson
