“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind as to send me on the Literature of Negroes. Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their reestablishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
―
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
“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“History, by apprising [the people] of the past, will enable them to judge of the future.”
―
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
