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When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The objects of their desires are changed what they were fond of before has become indifferent they were free while under the restraint of laws, but they would fain now be free to act against law.

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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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.
Thomas Jefferson
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A government held together by the bands of reason only, requires much compromise of opinion.
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The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam [to a carriage on wheels] will make a great change in the situation of man.
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The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.
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The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.
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Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.
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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
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But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.
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In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.
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The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.
Thomas Jefferson
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The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
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I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.
Thomas Jefferson
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The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is left... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.
Thomas Jefferson
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The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of Heaven and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson
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While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?
Thomas Jefferson
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Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.
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If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.
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Having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than the same are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there for there competition brings it down to the minimum value.
Thomas Jefferson