2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.

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.

I advance it therefore [...] that the blacks [...] are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

The government you elect is the government you deserve.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

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."[First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801]

In proportion to their number, [incompatible immigrants] will infuse into [the nation] their spirit, warp or bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.