Top 200 Best Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Top 200 Best Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Thomas Jefferson Quotes-On April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson, one of our famous American Founding Fathers, was born. He was the key author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and John Adams’ Vice President before becoming the third President of the United States in 1801.  In the years following the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson strove to make its words a reality in Virginia.  Less than a decade later, he drafted legislation guaranteeing religious freedom.

During his administration, Jefferson reduced military spending, lowered the budget, and repealed the whiskey tax, all while cutting the national debt by more than 30%.  Thomas Jefferson died at the age of 83 in 1826.  Jefferson served his nation as a public officer, historian, and philosopher for nearly 50 years of his life.  The Thomas Jefferson quotations depict his life as an inspiring icon for both main political parties in the United States.  We have provided a list of the top 200 best Thomas Jefferson quotes.

Top 200 Best Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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

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

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. Thomas Jefferson I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

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

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

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. 

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

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what not just the government should refuse, or rest on inference. 

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

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

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 

One man with courage is a majority. 

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.

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

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

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

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. 

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. 

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

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

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. 

Most Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes To Inspire You

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

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’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

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

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

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 you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.

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

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

Popular Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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

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.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

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

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

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.

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Inspirational Thomas Jefferson Quotes On Happiness, Life, And Freedom

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.

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

Take care of your cents; dollars will take care of themselves.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

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.

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

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.

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

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.

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

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

I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.

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

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

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.

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

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

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

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.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

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

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

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

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

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

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

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

Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.

No people who are ignorant can be truly free

Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.

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

Self-love is no part of morality. Indeed it is exactly its counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.

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

Freedom, the first-born of science.

Motivational Thomas Jefferson Quotes to Empower You

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

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

I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more.

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

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

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

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

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

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

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.

As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.

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

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.

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

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.

Was the government to prescribe us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

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

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.But this momentous question. Like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.

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

If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden…But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.

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

Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I have steadfastly believed.

When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.

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

With your talents and industry, with science, and that steadfast honesty, which eternally pursues right, regardless of consequences, you may promise yourself everything but health, without which there is no happiness.

That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.

Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

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

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the general progress of the human mind.

But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.

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.

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

Never spend your money before you have it.

The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.

I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.

Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.

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.

Delay is preferable to error.

It is my rule never to take a side in any part in the quarrels of others, nor to inquire into them. I generally presume them to flow from the indulgence of too much passion on both sides, & always find that each party thinks all the wrong was in his adversary. These bickerings, which are always useless, embitter human life more than any other cause…

Half a loaf is better than no bread.

Conclusion

All men are created equal – aren’t they lovely words? But did you know that they were spoken by Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and the third President of the United States? Among his many important accomplishments, Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, which is where this famous quotation originates from! Jefferson is a pivotal figure in American history. He was regarded as direct and fearless, brave but patient. He was the light at the end of the tunnel for those who lived during his time.

You must have a decent sense of the content of this article by now, and you anticipated that it would be a collection of the most notable Thomas Jefferson quotations, and yes, it was. We hope you liked them. We believe that our collection of Thomas Jefferson quotations honors him as one of the United States Founding Fathers. 

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