Quotes · Skopia

54 quotes

1787

★ 9.1

Political literature

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

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 7.8

Letter · Political writing

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

Thomas Jefferson

1820

★ 7.3

Letter

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

Thomas Jefferson

1787

★ 7.1

Letter

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

Thomas Jefferson

1790

★ 6.3

Letter

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.

Thomas Jefferson

1786

★ 6.2

Letter

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.

Thomas Jefferson

1813

★ 6.2

Letter · Political writing

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.

Thomas Jefferson

1816

★ 6.2

Political literature

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.

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1787

★ 5.5

Letter

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

Thomas Jefferson

1800

★ 5.5

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.

Thomas Jefferson

1779

★ 5.4

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

Thomas Jefferson

1812

★ 4.7

Letter · Political writing

Speeches measured by the hour, die with the hour.

Thomas Jefferson

1824

★ 4.7

Letter

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

Thomas Jefferson

1791

★ 4.6

Speech · Political speech

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.

Thomas Jefferson

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 4.6

Letter

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

Thomas Jefferson

1789

★ 3.9

Letter

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

Thomas Jefferson

1813

★ 3.9

Political literature

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.

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 3.8

Political literature

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.

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 3.8

Letter

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

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to James Madison, 1789 · 1789

★ 3.8

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