"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." - Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-85)
"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." - Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-85)
"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing." - letter to James Madison, Jan. 330, 1787 [*vol. 11, p. 93]
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." - letter to W. S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787 [*vol. 12, p. 356]
"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them [government positions], a rottenness begins in his conduct." - letter to Tench Coxe, May 21, 1799 [**vol. 7, p. 381]
"If the principle were to prevail, of a common law being in force in the U.S. . . . it would become the most corrupt government on the earth." - letter to Gideon Granger, Aug. 113, 1800 [**vol. 7, p. 451]
"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." - 1st Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
"Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm?" - 1st Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none." - 1st Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
"I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents." - letter to John Adams, Oct. 28, 1813.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - letter to Col. Charles Yancey, Jan. 6, 1816 [**vol. 10, p. 4]
"We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." - referring to slavery, letter to John Holmes, Apr. 22, 1820 [Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 15, Lipscome and Berg, 1903]
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of 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." - letter to William Charles Jarvis, Sep. 28, 1820 [**vol. 10, p. 16]
[HOME] QUOTES: [ Spirit of '76 | Confederate | Europeans | Other]