Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes: You could have a better understanding of the United States of America and its political system from reading these quotes from Thomas Jefferson. President and Founding Father Thomas Jefferson oversaw a number of important accomplishments while in office. But the main reason people still talk about him is that he was one of the people who worked hard to win their independence from Great Britain.
Indeed, his accomplishments will always be remembered in the pages of history. His valor and tenacity have already been recorded in history. On the other hand, you’ll observe how his thoughts and words still have a significant impact on the world today. Therefore, you should place this exceptional collection at the top of your list of things to read right away if you want to get the most out of it. The quotes by Thomas Jefferson below are a fantastic resource for learning about people, society, and the government.
Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes
1. “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson
2. “Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.” – Thomas Jefferson
3. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” – Thomas Jefferson
4. “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.” – Thomas Jefferson
5. “Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.” – Thomas Jefferson
6. “It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.” – Thomas Jefferson
7. “How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.” – Thomas Jefferson
8. “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.” – Thomas Jefferson
9. “Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.” – Thomas Jefferson
10. “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
11. “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 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” – Thomas Jefferson
12. “Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.” – Thomas Jefferson
13. “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
14. “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.” – Thomas Jefferson
15. “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.” – Thomas Jefferson
16. “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.” – Thomas Jefferson
17. “It is error alone which needs the support of the government. Truth can stand by itself.” – Thomas Jefferson
18. “It is the great parent of science and of virtue, and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free.” – Thomas Jefferson
19. “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” – Thomas Jefferson
20. “It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson
21. “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
22. “Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
23. “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
24. “Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
25. “A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
26. “But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is on one scale, and self-preservation on the other.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
27. “Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
28. “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 Quotes
29. “I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
30. “Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
31. “When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
32. “It is always better to have no ideas than false ones. To believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.” – Thomas Jefferson Quotes
33. “Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.”
34. “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
35. “As our enemies have found, we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.”
36. “There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.”
37. “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. That His justice cannot sleep forever.”
38. “Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.”
39. “One man with courage is a majority.”
40. “The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.”
41. “Experience hath shown that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
42. “Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.”
43. “I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”
44. “Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
45. “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
46. “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.”
47. “The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.”
48. “Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.”
49. “It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.”
50. “One travels more usefully when alone because he reflects more.”
51. “War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrongs, and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”
52. “Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”
53. “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
54. “When angry, count to before you speak. If very angry, count to 100.”
55. “In every country where man is free to think and to speak, the difference of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason, but these differences, when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently, and leaving our horizon more bright and serene.”
56. “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?”
57. “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”
58. “I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.”
59. “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”
60. “A machine for making revolutions is doing precisely the wrong thing at just the right time.”
What aspects of Thomas Jefferson’s thinking about freedom and society have you noticed? Thomas Jefferson’s writings make it obvious that he believed his nation will one day be independent. Even if this line of reasoning might seem simple, all it takes to start a revolution is total trust in it.
As he labored to develop himself and his abilities, Thomas Jefferson let the world see his love of his country and his feeling of patriotism. He was prepared to spend the rest of his life learning about the connections between American culture, politics, and the American Revolution. Additionally, he empowered the ordinary people to struggle for their own freedom.
Thomas Jefferson inspires people in a variety of ways, not simply because of the legacy he left behind after his death. He also showed that everything is achievable if one is dedicated and makes a sincere attempt.
We hope that these Thomas Jefferson quotes will motivate you to put in a lot of effort to accomplish your goals. Make it a point to act bravely in whatever situation you find yourself in, just like he did. Please feel free to go back to our collection of quotes by Thomas Jefferson whenever you need inspiration.
Which quote from Thomas Jefferson do you find most inspiring? Which of his achievements to society do you think is the most admirable, and why? Post your ideas here!
