Quote

The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.

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
Chief
Chiefs
Abandon
Protect
Purpose
Government
Life
Abandoned

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
It is an essential attribute of the jurisdiction of every country to preserve peace, to punish acts in breach of it, and to restore property taken by force within its limits.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
It look like the lord just work for wite folks cause ever sens i wasn nothin but a litle boy i been on my on haulin water to the fiel on that ol water cart wit all them dime bukets an that dipper just hittin an old dorthy just trottin and trottin an me up their hittin her wit that rope.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by reflection.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I learn with great concern that [one] portion of our frontier so interesting, so important, and so exposed, should be so entirely unprovided with common fire-arms. I did not suppose any part of the United States so destitute of what is considered as among the first necessaries of a farm-house.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I sincerely pray that all the members of the human family may, in the time prescribed by the Father of us all, find themselves securely established in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Having labored faithfully in establishing the right of self-government, we see in the rising generation, into whose hands it is passing, that purity of principle and energy of character which will protect and preserve it through their day, and deliver it over to their sons as they receive it from their fathers.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid and I find myself much the happier.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Error is to be pitied and pardoned: it is the weakness of human nature. But vice is a foul blemish, not pardonable in any character.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We are not immortal ourselves, my friend how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence and we must acquiesce.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
in the spring he will attend your botanical course. his natural turn is very strongly to the objects of your two courses of lectures, and I hope you will have reason to be contended with his capacity & character.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Paper money is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.
Thomas Jefferson