“Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.”

“A machine for making revolutions is doing precisely the wrong thing at just the right time.”

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.”

“We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.”

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.

“I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.” 

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

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” 

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

“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”

“Without books, I would certainly die.”

“How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” 

“I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.”

“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

“History, by apprising [the people] of the past, will enable them to judge of the future.”