Quote

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

Thomas Jefferson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
Architect
Cryptographer
Diplomat
Farmer
Inventor
Jurist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Belongs
Inspire
Dead
Living
Earth
Life

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The patriot, like the Christian, must learn to bear revilings and persecutions as a part of his duty and in proportion as the trial is severe, firmness under it becomes more requisite and praiseworthy. It requires, indeed, self-command. But that will be fortified in proportion as the calls for its exercise are repeated.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
One imputation in particular has been repeated till it seems as if some at least believed it: that I am an enemy to commerce. They admit me a friend of agriculture, and suppose me an enemy to the only means of disposing of its produce.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
the boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the sole guardians of the principles we deliver over to them.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
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
Image
A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The law for religious freedom... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The difficulty is no longer to find candidates for the offices, but offices for the candidates.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
music, drawing, books, invention & exercise will be so many resources to you against ennui.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The objects of their desires are changed what they were fond of before has become indifferent they were free while under the restraint of laws, but they would fain now be free to act against law.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
One had rather have no opinion than a false one.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Our liberty depends on freedom of the press.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
Thomas Jefferson