Great Quotes

Thomas Jefferson

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 of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782. ME 2:227

The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them. --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. Papers, 1:135

The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest and ourselves united. From the conclusion of [their] war [for independence, a nation begins] going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of [that] war will remain on [them] long, will be made heavier and heavier, till [their] rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion. --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. (*) ME 2:225

It had become an universal and almost uncontroverted position in the several States, that the purposes of society do not require a surrender of all our rights to our ordinary governors; that there are certain portions of right not necessary to enable them to carry on an effective government, and which experience has nevertheless proved they will be constantly encroaching on, if submitted to them; that there are also certain fences which experience has proved peculiarly efficacious against wrong, and rarely obstructive of right, which yet the governing powers have ever shown a disposition to weaken and remove. Of the first kind, for instance, is freedom of religion; of the second, trial by jury, habeas corpus laws, free presses. --Thomas Jefferson to Noah Webster, 1790. ME 8:112

[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people. --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776. (*) Papers, 1:338

My principle is to do whatever is right and leave the consequences to Him who has the disposal of them. --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1813. ME 13:387

Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us. --Thomas Jefferson to James Breckenridge, 1822. ME 15:363

A bold, unequivocal virtue is the best handmaid even to ambition, and would carry [one] further, in the end, than [the pursuit of a] temporizing, wavering policy. --Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1789. ME 7:380

A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering. --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:40

Our Saviour... has taught us to judge the tree by its fruit, and to leave motives to Him who can alone see into them. --Thomas Jefferson to Martin Van Buren, 1824. ME 16:55

We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals, our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties. --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural, 1805. ME 3:375

[I consider] ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man. --Thomas Jefferson to Augustus B. Woodward, 1824. ME 16:19

Is it the less dishonest to do what is wrong, because not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy. --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:360

I fear, from the experience of the last twenty-five years, that morals do not of necessity advance hand in hand with the sciences. --Thomas Jefferson to M. Correa de Serra, 1815. ME 14:331

[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government. --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1813. ME 19:197

[It is] the people, to whom all authority belongs. --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:328

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press. --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:45

Manfully maintain our good old principle of cherishing and fortifying the rights and authorities of the people in opposition to those who fear them, who wish to take all power from them and to transfer all to Washington. --Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1826. FE 10:378

The paradox with me is how any friend to the union of our country can, in conscience, contribute a cent to the maintenance of anyone who perverts the sanctity of his desk to the open inculcation of rebellion, civil war, dissolution of government, and the miseries of anarchy. --Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, 1815. ME 14:235

The mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights. --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23