2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor happiness. It is but honorable exile from one's family and affairs.

The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy].

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

A pirate spreading misery and ruin over the face of the ocean

It is highly interesting to our country, and it is the duty of its functionaries, to provide that every citizen in it should receive an education proportioned to the condition and pursuits of his life.

The evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come.

Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent.

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.