Quote

The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.

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
Giving
Entering
Quite
Rights
Society
Idea
Natural
Give
Ideas
Unfounded

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterwards. The fortune of our lives therefore depends on employing well the short period of our youth.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
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.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Our bills shall not be killed.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume and knowing it, to defeat its views.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
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
Image
If science produces no better fruits than tyranny... I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighbouring savages are.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Drawing ... is an innocent & engaging amusement, often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to become a mother & an instructor.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we had hoped that our distance and our dispositions would have left us free, in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Dependence begets subservience and paves the way for tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
All we can do is to make the best of our friends, love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way what is bad.
Thomas Jefferson