Thomas Jefferson

Son of actor and writer Joseph Jefferson.

Brother of actor William Jefferson.

Pictured on the 2 United States postage stamp in the Liberty series, issued 15 September 1954 1948.

Elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, 1900 (charter election).

Died on the same date as president John Adams , 4 July 1826, exactly 50 years after the American colonies declared their independence from England.

Author of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Second vice president of the United States, 4 March 1797 - 4 March 1801.

Third president of the United States, 4 March 1801 - 4 March 1809.

Pictured on a 29 United States definitive postage stamp in the Great Americans series, issued 13 April 1993.

Became President-elect John Adams s Vice-President, despite being from opposing political parties. This was due to the fact that in early elections, there was no party "ticket" and instead the runner-up was given the post of vice-president.

Under Jefferson, the United States nearly doubled in size, as France sold a vast tract of land to the fledgling country: the Louisiana Purchase.

Contrary to popular belief, he had little say in the formation of the Constitution. During the time of the Constitutional Convention, he was serving as the American Ambassador to the Royal Court of Louis XVI.

As well as being a politician and political philosopher, he was also a tireless inventor (much like his contemporary Ben Franklin) and created designs for the dumb-waiter (an early service elevator) and an improved sundial, as well as architectural designs for his home at Monticello. He was also deeply interested in science of all stripes and was a competent violin player.

Although he owned slaves, he did agitate for abolition of slavery and tried to introduce language in the Declaration of Independence that would have called for its immediate abolition. Due to a backlash from southern states (led by South Carolina) that threatened to derail the entire independance proposal, he finally and very reluctantly struck the passages from the draft declaration.

He hated the presidency so much that it was left off his headstone. It reads simply: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom and father of the University of Virginia." However, a statue dedicated to him that sits in front of the state capitol building in Jefferson City, Missouri, does mention his presidency.

Cousin of Congressman John Marshall and Congressman William Segar Archer.

Father-in-law of Gov. Thomas Mann Randolph and Sen. John Wayles Eppes.

Governor of Virginia (1779-1781).

United States Secretary of State (1790-1793).

An Onondaga chief gave him the name of Karanduawn, meaning the Great Tree.

Invented the dumbwaiter, lazy Susan, pedometer, swivel chair, and folding chair. He also came up with Chicken a la King (chicken, peas and carrots in a white sauce) and Baked Alaska (a cake and ice cream concoction).

He was asked to write the Declaration of Independence only after John Adams turned it down, saying he was too busy.

Jefferson City, Missouri, actually became the state capital while Thomas Jefferson was still alive.

The first of only four American Presidents without a First Lady during his time in office.

He is among the tallest U.S. Presidents alongside his contemporary George Washington, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Abraham Lincoln (Who are both tied for the tallest).

Loved Ice Cream and served it frequently in his home.

Had a reputation for wearing wacky, mismatched outfits. He also often received visitors while he was still in his pajamas. It is believed he did this as a way of distracting people from his poor speaking skills.

He was a supporter of the French Revolution.

He founded the University of Virginia.

He was the first U.S. ambassador to France.

After the War of 1812, Jefferson sold his personal library of more than six thousand books so that the Library of Congress could be restored. The British destroyed the library by setting fire to the Capital.

He was an excellent writer and a notoriously bad public speaker due to being extremely shy.

He spoke six languages.

He led Americas first ever Archaeological dig.

When angry, count ten before you speak. If very angry, a hundred.

Information is the currency of democracy.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God.

The first object of my heart is my own country. This solitary republic,of the world is the only monument of human rights, and the sole,repository of the sacred fire of freedom.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed, by their creator, with certain unalienable,rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of,happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted,among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat,it.

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.

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.

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately. . . These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. ],The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.

I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.

They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.

A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience.

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,I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it,Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry. . .

May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately. . . These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to,While the art of printing is left to us science can never be retrograde what is once acquired of real knowledge can never be lost.

The more ignorant we become the less value we set on science, and the less inclination we shall have to seek it.

I cannot live without books.

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.

Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace,I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!,Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

He [Weishaupt] says, no one ever laid a surer foundation for liberty than our grand master, Jesus of Nazareth.

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medecine necessary for the sound health of government.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

. . . We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans.

. . . never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. . . . When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? . . . There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. . . . Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

The dead should not rule the living.

Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.

Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

‎We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude. . . If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. . . if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

History is philosophy teaching by examples.

No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.

Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people.

The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. -Thomas Jefferson,I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a Colossus shall we be when the Southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it secure as a ralliance for the reason & freedom of the globe! I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. So good night. I will dream on, always fancying that Mrs Adams and yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries.

All that is necessary for a student is access to a library.

This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

. . . it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it. . . Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same,I find that the harder I work , the more luck I seem to have.

To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others.

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

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.

Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir,The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

no people can be both ignorant and free.

No people who are ignorant can be truly free.

If we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers [Gospels] father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor. . . We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications. . . That sect [Jews] had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust. . . Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law. . . That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore. [Letter to William Short, 4 August, 1820],The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture. --The Fruit Hunters,The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.

I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste.

It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice,We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. . . . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. . .

I hope we shall . . . crush in it’s birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798),The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government. (A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. ),Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large. . .

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. Tosay that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is tosay they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels,no soul. I cannot reason otherwise . . . without plunginginto the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I amsatisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things whichare, without tormenting or troubling myself aboutthose which may indeed be, but of which I have noevidence.

Question with boldness even the existence of aGod; because, if there be one, he must more approve ofthe homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.

Thomas Jefferson asked himself “In what country on earth would you rather live ” He first answered “Certainly in my own where are all my friends my relations and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. ” But he continued “which would be your second choice ” His answer “France.

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

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,Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.

The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.

The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.

Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting,I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,. . . [One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.

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,It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

. . . vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. . . . What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.

The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. . . and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc.

the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.

A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life:1. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day. 2. Never trouble another with what you can do yourself. 3. Never spend your money before you have it. 4. Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you. 5. Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves. 6. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold. 7. We never repent of having eat too little. 8. Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly. 9. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened. 10. Take things always by their smooth handle. 11. Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes. 12. When angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.

Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.

All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.

I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading subjugation on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it: for man is an imitative animal.

punish by castration. All other crimes by working on high roads, rivers, gallies, etc.

a certain time proportioned to the offence. . . Laws thus proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the lawgiver, but let the judge be a mere machine. The mercies of the law will be dispensed equally and impartially to every description of men; those of the judge or of the executive power will be the eccentric impulses of whimsical, capricious designing man.

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.

It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.

[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired]This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects (Works, Vol. iv, p. 327).

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only. ’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c.

&c. ; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. ”—Letter to John Norvell, 14 June 1807[Works 10:417--18],Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, . . . . whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance.

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.

New York, like London, seems to be a cloacina [toilet] of all the depravities of human nature.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

When describing the University of Virginia: Here, We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

Enlighten the people, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through it is best to meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil while fretting and fuming only increase your own torments.

Advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on in a newspaper.

All authority belongs to the people.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame its parts their functions and actions.

I succeed him no one could replace him.

No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

I am mortified to be told that in the United States of America the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry and of criminal inquiry too.

In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

The habit of using ardent spirits by men in office has occasioned more injury to the public and more trouble to me than all other causes. Were I to commence my administration again the first question I would ask respecting a candidate for office would be Does he use ardent spirits?,We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God if He ever had a chosen people whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

France freed from that monster Bonaparte must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune give a preference to some other one and the first choice of all not under those ties.

Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered.

That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us but is always the result of a good conscience good health occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.

Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind.

It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.

It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.

The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.

The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

I steer my bark with hope in my heart leaving fear astern.

Of all calamities this is the greatest.

The sword of the law should never fall but on those whose guilt is so apparent as to be pronounced by their friends as well as foes.

The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.

It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.

I never did or countenanced in public life a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith having never believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man.

The sun - my almighty physician.

I do not take a single newspaper nor read one a month and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through it is best to make up our minds to meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practical. This lessons the evil while fretting and fuming only serve to increase your own torments.

If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few: by resignation none.

No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any.

It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion.

I steer my bark with hope in my heart leaving fear astern.

If I could not go to Heaven but with a party I would not go there at all.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on office a rottenness begins in his conduct.

If a due participation of office is a matter of right how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few by resignation none.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

The hole and the patch should be commensurate.

A republican government is slow to move yet when once in motion its momentum becomes irresistible.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

The hole and the patch should be commensurate.

Equal rights for all special privileges for none.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans and must be that of every free state.

Peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

I like the dreams for the future better than the history of the past.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself as public property.

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

War is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.

No nation is drunken where wine is cheap and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is in truth the only antidote to the bane of whiskey.

How much pain they have cost us the evils which have never happened.

I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital [Paris].

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

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.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

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.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

One man with courage is a majority.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice cannot sleep forever.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

There is not a truth existing which I fear. . . or would wish unknown to the whole world.

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

I have no ambition to govern men it is a painful and thankless office.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?,Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

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.

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave. .