2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Knowledge is power...knowled ge is safety...knowle dge is happiness.

The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.

The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.

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.

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.

God has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own.

There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.

It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.