There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

Thomas Jefferson

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.

Thomas Jefferson

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

Thomas Jefferson

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Thomas Jefferson

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

Thomas Jefferson

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

Thomas Jefferson

How sublime to look down on the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet!

Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Thomas Jefferson

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

Thomas Jefferson

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

Thomas Jefferson

We never repent of having eaten too little.

Thomas Jefferson

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

Thomas Jefferson

Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.

Thomas Jefferson

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.

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 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

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Thomas Jefferson

Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.

Thomas Jefferson

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

Thomas Jefferson

There is not a truth existing which I fear… or would wish unknown to the whole world.

Thomas Jefferson

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

Thomas Jefferson

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

Thomas Jefferson

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

Thomas Jefferson

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

Thomas Jefferson

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

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

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Thomas Jefferson

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Thomas Jefferson

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

Thomas Jefferson

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

Thomas Jefferson

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

Thomas Jefferson

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

Thomas Jefferson

In matters of style, swim with the current: in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Thomas Jefferson

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

Thomas Jefferson

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

Thomas Jefferson

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 blind-folded fear.

Thomas Jefferson

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

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

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

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 prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

Thomas Jefferson

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

Thomas Jefferson

One man with courage is a majority.

Thomas Jefferson

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

Thomas Jefferson

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

Thomas Jefferson

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it we respect that of others, without fearing it.

Thomas Jefferson

Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

Thomas Jefferson

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

Thomas Jefferson

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.

Thomas Jefferson

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Thomas Jefferson

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

Thomas Jefferson

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Thomas Jefferson

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

Thomas Jefferson

Health is worth more than learning.

Thomas Jefferson

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.

Thomas Jefferson

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Thomas Jefferson

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

Thomas Jefferson

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.

Thomas Jefferson

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

Thomas Jefferson

The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.

Thomas Jefferson

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.

Thomas Jefferson