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THOMAS JEFFERSON QUOTES V

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John W. Eppes, Jun. 24, 1813

Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Adams, Jun. 27, 1813

To me ... it appears that there have been differences of opinion and party differences, from the first establishment of governments to the present day, and on the same question which now divides our own country; that these will continue through all future time; that every one takes his side in favor of the many or of the few, according to his constitution and the circumstances in which he is placed; that opinions, which are equally honest on both sides, should not affect personal esteem or social intercourse; that as we judge between the Claudii and the Gracchi, the Wentworths and the Hampdens of past ages, so of those among us whose names may happen to be remembered for a while, the next generations will judge, favorably or unfavorably, according to the complexion of individual minds and the side they shall themselves have taken.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Adams, Jun. 27, 1813

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Baron Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813

Take from man his selfish propensities, and he can have nothing to seduce him from the practice of virtue. Or subdue those propensities by education, instruction or restraint, and virtue remains without a competitor.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Law, Jun. 13, 1814

The want or imperfection of the moral sense in some men, like the want or imperfection of the senses of sight and hearing in others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic of the species. When it is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or rejection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those whose disparity is not too profound to be eradicated.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Law, Jun. 13, 1814

The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Cooper, Sep. 10, 1814

Truth advances, and error recedes step by step only.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, Oct. 7, 1814

The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Joseph C. Cabell, Feb. 2, 1816

Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Joseph C. Cabell, Feb. 2, 1816

I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Adams, Apr. 8, 1816

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

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Monsieur Dupont de Nemours, Apr. 24, 1816

I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, Aug. 6, 1816

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.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to M. de Neuville, Dec. 13, 1818

It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Sep. 6, 1819

The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Short, Aug. 4, 1820

The truth is, that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Adams, Apr. 11, 1823

Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, Feb. 21, 1825

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to George Gilmer, Jul. 5, 1775

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

THOMAS JEFFERSON, Notes on Virginia

I sincerely believe, with you, that banking institutions 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.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816

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

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Mr. Leiper, Jun. 12, 1815

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.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

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

THOMAS JEFFERSON, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

THOMAS JEFFERSON, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson

I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Garland Jefferson, June 15, 1792

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

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Adams, August 1, 1816

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

THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Archibald Stewart, Dec. 23, 1791


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