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JEFFERSON, Thomas Quotes
(1743-1826), 3rd President of the United States of America
Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling, for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred.
How much have cost us the evils that never happened!
I have always said, I always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.
Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians.
Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.
Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, these are principles that have guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
The habit of intemperance by men in office has occasioned more injury to the public, and more trouble to me, than all other causes; and, were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate for office, would be, "Does he use ardent spirits?"
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Equal and exact justice to all: peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, and entangling alliances with none; the support of State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administration of our domestic concerns, are the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.
All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
All men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. The hour of emancipation must come; but whether it will be brought on by the generous energies of our own minds, or by the bloody scenes of St. Domingo, is a leaf of our history not yet turned over. The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest.
The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.
Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it is what I have steadfastly believed.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
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