As a third president of the United States and a man with a rich inner life that reflected in his thoughts precisely, left behind resources of wisdom. And these Thomas Jefferson quotes will give you profound insights into the life he led and the thoughts he enriched.
He was an avid reader and a witty writer. The two traits that made him this being whose words held so much power and truth that they’ve not lost their charm and influence even today, after ages.
Here we’ve collected the most profound quotes from Thomas Jefferson that have been quoted from his open and private letters and speeches. We truly need someone again in charge who cares as much as he did about liberty, rights, and justice. Maybe this post will give you a wake-up call or the courage to believe in what you regard as the truth and follow it.
10 Most Famous Thomas Jefferson Quotes
1. “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
2. “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
3. “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”
4. “The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”
5. “Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.”
6. “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
7. “It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”
8. “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.”
9. “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
10. “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.”
Educational Quotes From Thomas Jefferson
1. “I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.”
2. “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
3. “The qualifications for self government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training.
4. “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
5. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
6. “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
7. “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
8. “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”
9. “It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.”
10. “The children of the poor must be thus educated at common expense. Today, other expenses are more urgent. But the day is not distant when it can be postponed no longer.”
Thomas Jefferson Quotes On Freedom & Liberty
1. “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”
2. “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.”
3. “When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
4. “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”
5. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
6. “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
7. “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”
8. “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
9. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
10. “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.”
Motivational Quotes Of Thomas Jefferson About Government & Democracy
1. “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”
2. “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.”
3. “The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.”
4. “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.”
5. “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
6. “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.”
7. “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.”
8. “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”
9. “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”
10. “The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.”