“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.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.
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Thomas Jefferson
“The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted by the laws in theory.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I write nothing for publication, and last of all things should it be on the subject of religion. On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Were I to enter on that arena, I should only add an unit to the number of Bedlamites.
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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.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“A machine for making revolutions is doing precisely the wrong thing at just the right time.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“If all be true that I do think, there are five reasons we should drink. Good friends, good times, or being dry, or lest we should be by and by, or any other reason why”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart.
―
Thomas Jefferson
