Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted
by Thomas Jefferson

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted
with the government of himself.
Can he, then be trusted with the government of others?
Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?
Let history answer this question.
- Thomas Jefferson

Related topics: Cynical Government Political Wisdom

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
- Thomas Jefferson
(also attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Lord Chesterfield)

When angry, count to ten before you speak.
If very angry, count to one hundred.
- Thomas Jefferson

Power is not alluring to pure minds.
- Thomas Jefferson

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am a great believer in luck
and I find that the harder
I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson

I find that the harder I work,
the more luck I seem to have.
- Thomas Jefferson

How much pain they have cost us,
the evils which have never happened.
- Thomas Jefferson

Whenever you do a thing,
act as if all the world were watching.
- Thomas Jefferson

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson

Determine never to be idle.
No person will have occasion to complain
of the want of time who never loses any.
It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
- Thomas Jefferson

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson

Truth is certainly a branch of morality
and a very important one to society.
- Thomas Jefferson

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson

Do you want to know who you are?
Don't ask. Act!
Action will delineate and define you.
- Thomas Jefferson

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another
as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson

He who knows best knows how little he knows.
- 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

In matters of style, swim with the current;
in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- Thomas Jefferson

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life
in which chance has placed us,
but is always the result of a good conscience,
good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
- Thomas Jefferson

Only aim to do your duty,
and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
- Thomas Jefferson

I never considered a difference of opinion
in politics, in religion, in philosophy,
as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
- Thomas Jefferson

We are not afraid to follow truth
wherever it may lead,
nor to tolerate any error
so long as reason is left free to combat it.
- Thomas Jefferson

We never repent of having eaten too little.
- Thomas Jefferson

It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson

The moment a person forms a theory,
his imagination sees in every object
only the traits which favor that theory.
- Thomas Jefferson

I find that he is happiest
of whom the world says least, good or bad.
- Thomas Jefferson

The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which
it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters.
- Thomas Jefferson

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
- Thomas Jefferson

The glow of one warm thought
is to me worth more than money.
- Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations,
the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson

It is in our lives and not our words
that our religion must be read.
- Thomas Jefferson

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people ...
They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson

The good opinion of mankind,
like the lever of Archimedes,
with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
- Thomas Jefferson

Fix reason firmly in her seat,
and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.
Question with boldness even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one,
he must more approve of the homage of reason,
than that of blindfolded fear.
- Thomas Jefferson

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
- Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say
there are twenty gods or no God.
- Thomas Jefferson

Don't talk about what you have done
or what you are going to do.
- Thomas Jefferson

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations;
entangling alliances with none.
- Thomas Jefferson

It takes time to persuade men to do even
what is for their own good.
- Thomas Jefferson

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth,
and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
- Thomas Jefferson

Speeches that are measured by the hour
will die with the hour.
- Thomas Jefferson

Happiness is not being pained in body, or troubled in mind.
- Thomas Jefferson

Wisdom I know is social.
She seeks her fellows.
But Beauty is jealous,
and illy bears the presence of a rival.
- Thomas Jefferson

Walking is the best possible exercise.
Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
- Thomas Jefferson

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
- Thomas Jefferson

As our enemies have found, we can reason like men,
so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
- Thomas Jefferson

Experience demands that man is
the only animal which devours his own kind,
for I can apply no milder term to
the general prey of the rich on the poor.
- Thomas Jefferson

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
- Thomas Jefferson

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another
is a thing which has never yet existed,
from the greatest confederacy of nations
down to a town meeting or a vestry.
- Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism
to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy,
and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
- Thomas Jefferson

If there is one principle more deeply rooted
in the mind of every American,
it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
- Thomas Jefferson

Experience hath shown, that even
under the best forms of government,
those entrusted with power have,
in time, and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny.
- Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all
is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson

Every generation needs a new revolution.
- Thomas Jefferson

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will
within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
I do not add "within the limits of the law"
because law is often but the tyrant's will,
and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
- Thomas Jefferson

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency
the reputation which carried him into it.
- Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted
to the rulers of the people alone.
The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
- Thomas Jefferson

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.
The several sects perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
- Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have earned it.
- Thomas Jefferson

The interests of a nation, when well understood,
will be found to coincide with their moral duties.
- Thomas Jefferson

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying
as to put the right man in the right place.
- Thomas Jefferson

Where the press is free and every man
is able to read, all is safe.
- Thomas Jefferson

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
- Thomas Jefferson

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself,
to resist invasions of it in the case of others:
or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
- Thomas Jefferson

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade,
but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement
the greater part of life is sunshine.
- Thomas Jefferson

Every citizen should be a soldier.
This was the case with the Greeks and Romans,
and must be that of every free state.
- Thomas Jefferson

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
- Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson

So confident am I in the intentions,
as well as wisdom, of the government,
that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done,
either cannot, or ought not to be done.
- Thomas Jefferson

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie