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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.

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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The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?
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Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United States its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations.
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Old heads as well as young may sometimes be charged with ignorance and presumption. The natural course of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
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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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Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skinsand furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them.
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Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.
Thomas Jefferson
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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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Law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
Thomas Jefferson
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Those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from...instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience.
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Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences.
Thomas Jefferson
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In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.
Thomas Jefferson
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An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.
Thomas Jefferson
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For St. Paul only says that it is better to be married than to burn. Now I presume that if that apostle had known that providence would at an after day be so kind to any particular set of people as to furnish them with other means of extinguishing their fire than those of matrimony, he would have earnestly recmmended them to their practice.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ambition is a tricky little animal to tame. It is very skillful at concealing itself from its master.
Thomas Jefferson
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I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
Thomas Jefferson
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The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.
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Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.
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On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
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The issue for patents for new discovers has given a spring to invention beyond my conception.
Thomas Jefferson
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Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable for, not the rightness, but the uprightness of the decision
Thomas Jefferson