Wise Quotes about Jefferson

When you reach the end of your rope,
tie a knot and hang on.
- Anonymous Saying
(Sometimes attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Eleanor Roosevelt, or Thomas Jefferson)

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

One man with courage makes a majority.
- old saying probably repeated by Andrew Jackson
(falsely attributed to Jefferson)

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- 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 nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The strongest reason for the people
to retain the right to keep and bear arms is,
as a last resort, to protect themselves
against tyranny in government.
- Thomas Jefferson

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
- Thomas Jefferson

The natural cause of the human mind
is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
- Thomas Jefferson

Were it left to me to decide whether we should
have a government without newspapers,
or newspapers without a government,
I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
- Thomas Jefferson

Conquest is not in our principles.
It is inconsistent with our government.
- 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

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

In every country and every age,
the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson

I am an Epicurean.
I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus
as containing everything rational in moral philosophy
which Greek and Roman leave to us.
- Thomas Jefferson

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
- 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

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

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

We are not to expect to be translated from
despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
- Thomas Jefferson

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny;
when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

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Wisdom Quotes