“The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter, but we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this, the most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson to John Adams (April 11, 1823)”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“A government which can be felt; a government of energy. God send that our country may never have a government, which it can feel.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.”
―
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 mental attitude.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money, are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is Just”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
