Sourced and curated.

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 7.8

The boisterous sea of liberty indeed is never without a wave.

1820

★ 7.3

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

1787

★ 7.1

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather-bed.

1790

★ 6.3

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment... Inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

1786

★ 6.2

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

1813

★ 6.2

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched... Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

1816

★ 6.2

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1787

★ 5.5

I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

1800

★ 5.5

He who knows most, knows best how little he knows.

1779

★ 5.4

1812

★ 4.7

Speeches measured by the hour, die with the hour.

1824

★ 4.7

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

1791

★ 4.6

Speech · Political speech

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 4.6

If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.

1789

★ 3.9

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

1813

★ 3.9

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 3.8

Is uniformity attainable? 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 effet of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 3.8

No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation.

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Letter to James Madison, 1789 · 1789

★ 3.8

Speech · Political speech

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 3.8

I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

1813

★ 3.8

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

1816

★ 3.8

Nothing gives one person so great advantage over another, as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

1816

★ 3.8

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.

1820

★ 3.8

We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

1820

★ 3.8

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.

1820

★ 3.8

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.

1787

★ 3.7

State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

1787

★ 3.7

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.

It rests now with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace and concord the blessings of self-government, so long denied to mankind: to shew by example the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs and that the will of the majority, the Natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man.

1787

★ 3.7

1790

★ 3.7

While in Europe, I often amused myself with contemplating the characters of the then reigning sovereigns of Europe. Lous XVI was a fool, of my own knowledge, and in despite of the answers made at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool, and of Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunting, and despatched two courtiers a week, one thousand miles, to let each other know what game they had killed the preceding days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature. And so was the King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of government. The King of Prussia, successor to the great Frederick, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria, were really crazy, and George of England you know was in a straight waistcoat.

1810

★ 3.7

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen: but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.

1810

★ 3.7

Dictionaries are but the depositories of words already legitimated by usage. Society is the work-shop in which new ones are elaborated. When an individual uses a new word, if illformed it is rejected in society, if well-informed, adopted, and, after due time, laid up in the depository of dictionaries.

1820

★ 3.7

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

A Summary View of the Rights of British America · 1774

★ 2.2

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

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 2.2

I cannot live without books.

Letter to John Adams, 1815 · 1815

★ 2.2

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 2.1

Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

1786

★ 2.1

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