“I felt enough of the effect of withdrawing from the world then, to see that it led to an antisocial and misanthropic state of mind, which severely punished him who gives in to it. And it will be a lesson I never shall forget as to myself.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,...[One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Kejujuran merupakan suatu kebijakan dalam bisnis, yang tidak perlu diubah atau disesuaikan dengan waktu.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
