Quote

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.

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
Worse
Hold
Rather
Smooth
Better
Rough
Take
Bitter
Always
Handle
Things
Gratitude
Grateful

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the State to be troubled with it.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
[States and the Federal government are] coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole... The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend divine services.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?
Thomas Jefferson
Image
In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Man is not made for the State but the State for man and it derives its just powers only from the consent of the governed.
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
A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.
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
The difficulty is no longer to find candidates for the offices, but offices for the candidates.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Dependence leads to subservience.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom & happiness of man.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.
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
The physician is happy in the attachment of the families in which he practices. All think he has saved one of them, and he finds himself everywhere a welcome guest, a home in every house.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
Thomas Jefferson