Quote

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

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
Reason
Enquiry
Irreversible
Humanist
Inquiry
Error
Agents
Errors
Free
Effectual

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Men as well as rivers grow crooked by following the path of least resistance.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
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
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
It is a [disputed] question, whether the circulation of paper, rather than of specie [gold and silver coin], is a good or an evil I believe it to be one of those cases where mercantile clamor will bear down reason, until it is corrected by ruin.
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
Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The fact is that one new idea leads to another, that to a third and so on through a course of time, until someone, with whom no one of these ideas was original, combines all together, and produces what is justly called a new invention.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Victory and defeat are each of the same price.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
He who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.
Thomas Jefferson