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Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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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.
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Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.
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No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.
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No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.
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The most effective way to find ourselves enslaved will not be done openly. If weakened we will sink gradually. I ask, who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, .... except a few public officers.
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If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
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Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country and by taking in those who are not so, the able part of the body have their hands tied by the unable.
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Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.
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No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.
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I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts.
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Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.
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It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.
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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
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When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.
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I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom & happiness of man.
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It is left... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.
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Do not write me studied letters but ramble as you please.
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I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box.
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Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power.
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That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson