Thomas Jefferson Quotes

"Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly." — Thomas Jefferson
The Jefferson Cyclopedia (1900) pg. 6 Jefferson wrote this to Peter Carr. He wrote this as a rule for action. Add Category or Author

"A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity." — Thomas Jefferson
The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson (2003) pg. 67 The quote continues, "The idle are the only miserable," and was written to his daughter, Martha Jefferson. Add Category or Author

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual." — Thomas Jefferson
As quoted in Memoirs, correspondence, and private papers of Thomas Jefferson: late president of the United States (1829), pg. 286 Written in a letter to Peter Carr, the quote continues, "...he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him." Add Category or Author

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." — Thomas Jefferson
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"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." — Thomas Jefferson
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"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." — Thomas Jefferson
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"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today." — Thomas Jefferson
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"Be polite to all, but intimate with few." — Thomas Jefferson
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"Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do." — Thomas Jefferson
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"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it." — Thomas Jefferson
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"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine." — Thomas Jefferson
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"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." — Thomas Jefferson
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"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." — Thomas Jefferson
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"Let what will be said or done, preserve your sang froid immovably, and to every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language" — Thomas Jefferson
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"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither" — Thomas Jefferson
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"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind" — Thomas Jefferson
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"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." — Thomas Jefferson
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"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition." — Thomas Jefferson
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"If Americans ever allow banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless" — Thomas Jefferson
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"We are endeavoring, too, to reduce the government to the practice of a rigorous economy, to avoid burdening the people, and arming the magistrate with patronage of money, which might be used to corrupt and undermine the principles of our government" — Thomas Jefferson
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"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." — Thomas Jefferson
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