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Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

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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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Duty
Give
Government
Aim
Giving
Credit
Fail
Failure
Failing
Mankind

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
Thomas Jefferson
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There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.
Thomas Jefferson
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Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.
Thomas Jefferson
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Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.
Thomas Jefferson
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Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author
Thomas Jefferson
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I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may.
Thomas Jefferson
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Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have been happy . . . in believing that . . . whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators.
Thomas Jefferson
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No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
Thomas Jefferson
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I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.
Thomas Jefferson
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Honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality.
Thomas Jefferson
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Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Thomas Jefferson
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It's only merit was in being the first publication which carried the claim of our rights their whole length, and asserted that there was no rightful link of connection between us and England but that of being under the same king.
Thomas Jefferson
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If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter
Thomas Jefferson
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The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired. Though to be candid, there are some who have too much good sense to esteem such monkey-like animals as these, in whose formation, as the saying is, the tailors and barbers go halves with God Almighty.
Thomas Jefferson
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We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.
Thomas Jefferson
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The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.
Thomas Jefferson
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Self-love . . . is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.
Thomas Jefferson
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What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.
Thomas Jefferson