“our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage,”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the dart belongs in usufruct to the living.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under the burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
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Thomas Jefferson
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
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Thomas Jefferson
