Quote

It is Mortifying to suppose it possible that a people able and zealous to contend with the Enemy should be reduced to fold their Arms for want of the means of defence yet no resources that we know of, ensure us against this event.

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
Possible
Ensure
Means
Patriotism
Mortifying
Able
Event
Zealous
Mean
Suppose
Contend
People
Resources
Fold
Arms
Folds
Events
Defence
Enemy
Reduced

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
By... [selecting] the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume and knowing it, to defeat its views.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.
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
A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I have wished to see chemistry applied to domestic objects, to malting, for instance, brewing, making cider, to fermentation and distillation generally, to the making of bread, butter, cheese, soap, to the incubation of eggs, &c.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
One never really knows how much one has been touched by a place until one has left it.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Unmerited abuse wounds, while unmerited praise has not the power to heal.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We are sensible of the duty and expediency of submitting our opinions to the will of the majority, and can wait with patience till they get right if they happen to be at any time wrong.
Thomas Jefferson