“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.”
―
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
“There is a ripeness of time for death,
regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and make room for
another growth. When we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied...and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The contest is not between Us and Them, but between Good and Evil, and if those who would fight Evil adopt the ways of Evil, Evil wins.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“They (religions) dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Speaking one day to Monsieur de Buffon, on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on the footing with those of the kitchen. I think it, on the contrary, among the most useful of sciences, and big with future discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not an article for mere consumption, but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
