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The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

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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I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self- government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.
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In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
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In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.
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Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.
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When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public.
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The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.
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Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.
Thomas Jefferson
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Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.
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Power is not alluring to pure minds.
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The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles.
Thomas Jefferson
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Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people they fix too for the people the principles of their political creed.
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Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.
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The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
Thomas Jefferson
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That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.
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Having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than the same are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there for there competition brings it down to the minimum value.
Thomas Jefferson
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No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.
Thomas Jefferson
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It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.
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If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
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