Quote

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.

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
Freedom
Abandon
Neither
Deserve
Lose
Achieve
Security
Loses

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Without health there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Our bills shall not be killed.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I have always said that a studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I have been happy . . . in believing that . . . whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
A mind always employed is always happy.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
When a uniform exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies,you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity in such a case, retaliation becomes an act of benevolence.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
One war, such as that of our Revolution, is enough for one life.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter endowed with will...Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Slavery is an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such, but I own that I nor any other man has any immediate solution to the problem.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.
Thomas Jefferson