Jefferson, Thomas
"In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty."
"That government is best which governs least."
"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty."
"If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education."
"I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. --Thomas Jefferson"
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
"I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it."
"Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail."
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."
"Be polite to all, but intimate with few."
"I cannot live without books. --Thomas Jefferson"
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
"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."
"Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper."
"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."
"When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, a hundred."
"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."
"Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society."
"A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order."
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labour of the industrious."
"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."
"The art of life is the art of avoiding pain."
"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty."
"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."
"How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!" - A Decaloque of Canons for observation in practical life (in letter, 1825)
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." - Autobiography
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." - draft of the Declaration of Independence
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." - letter (1791)
"No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will." - letter (to George Washington, 1792)
