Thomas Jefferson quotes

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

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

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Thomas Jefferson

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
Thomas Jefferson

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

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

The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

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

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.
Thomas Jefferson

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Thomas Jefferson

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have it.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson

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

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much
government.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not an article for mere
consumption, but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life,
it is their only capital.
Thomas Jefferson

Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself.
Thomas Jefferson

Opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view.
Thomas Jefferson

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... they are the only sure reliance for the
preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away
the rights of the other 49.
Thomas Jefferson

Information is the currency of democracy.
Thomas Jefferson

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