2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Tobacco is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness.

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.

Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effective agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error and error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruption of Christianity could not have been purged away.

Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.

I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...