Thomas Jefferson Quotes - Page 12

• I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Blessing, Simple, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: 1799-1803”, p.18, Cosimo, Inc.

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• History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, History, Historical

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.82

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• What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.... [Instead] reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Hypocrite, Errors, Support

  "Notes on the State of Virginia". Book by Thomas Jefferson, 1781-1783.

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• Those who don’t read the newspapers are better off than those who do insofar as those who know nothing are better off than those whose heads are filled with half-truths and lies.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Lying, Half, Newspapers

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• The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Doors, Land, Office

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Business, Men

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• I know nothing more important to inculcate into the minds of young people than the wisdom, the honor, and the blessed comfort of living within their income.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Blessed, People, Honor

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.211, Rowman & Littlefield

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• 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

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.10, Modern Library

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• I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Home, Government

  "The Real Thomas Jefferson".

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• Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Purpose, Action

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.72, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Ambition, Mean

  Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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• I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Integrity, Men, Quality

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.132, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Without health there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Attention, Should, Objects

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.13, Modern Library

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• Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Integrity, Honor, Love And Honor

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.221

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• Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Trust, Rights, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.106, Rowman & Littlefield

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• But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Government, Debt Free

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.93, Algora Publishing

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• The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four words: 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our enquiries must end.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Reading, Years

  Bernard Mayo, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “Jefferson Himself: The Personal Narrative of a Many-Sided American”, p.321, University of Virginia Press

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• The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Success, One Thing

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private : Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State”, p.6

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• I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Believe, Taken

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• He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Liars, Lying, Deception

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.286

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• A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Paris, Lessons, Eiffel Tower

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• ‎We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Running, Caring, Government

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• Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils of misgovernment.

  Thomas Jefferson

  People, Evil, Protect

  Thomas Jefferson, Andrew M. Allison (1983). “The Real Thomas Jefferson”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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• If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the 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

  Change, Errors, Safety

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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• The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Funny, Life, Good Morning

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