The sword of the law should never fall but on those whose guilt is so apparent as to be pronounced by their friends as well as foes.
If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital [Paris].
No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any.
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constituti...
Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from th...
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.
No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.
Happiness is not being pained in body nor troubled in mind.
I succeed him no one could replace him.
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.
Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace