2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period.

Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.

The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.(A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.)

Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people.