Thomas Jefferson

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

—Thomas Jefferson

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

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

—Thomas Jefferson

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it’s laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

—Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

—Thomas Jefferson

On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.

—Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

—Thomas Jefferson

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

—Thomas Jefferson

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

—Thomas Jefferson

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

—Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have it.

—Thomas Jefferson

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

—Thomas Jefferson

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

—Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

—Thomas Jefferson

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it’s laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

—Thomas Jefferson

Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

—Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

—Thomas Jefferson

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

—Thomas Jefferson

Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day.

—Thomas Jefferson

Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves.

—Thomas Jefferson

We never repent of having eat too little.

—Thomas Jefferson

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations…entangling alliances with none.

—Thomas Jefferson

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

—Thomas Jefferson

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

—Thomas Jefferson

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

—Thomas Jefferson

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.

—Thomas Jefferson

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.

—Thomas Jefferson

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

—Thomas Jefferson

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.

—Thomas Jefferson

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

—Thomas Jefferson