“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons, to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians; and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are able to find among them no such act of adoption; we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Altho' I rarely waste time in reading on theological subjects, as mangled by our Pseudo-Christians, yet I can readily suppose Basanistos may be amusing. Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. If it could be understood it would not answer their purpose. Their security is in their faculty of shedding darkness, like the scuttlefish, thro' the element in which they move, and making it impenetrable to the eye of a pursuing enemy, and there they will skulk.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everyone is standing around reloading”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson