124 Famous Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
4/13/1743 - 7/4/1826
Professions:
Information:
About Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States. At the beginning of the American Revolution, he served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia and then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia. Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France.
Jefferson was the first United States Secretary of State serving under President George Washington. With his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party, and subsequently resigned from Washington's cabinet. Elected Vice President in 1796, when he came in second to John Adams of the Federalists, Jefferson opposed Adams and with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Elected president in what Jefferson called the Revolution of 1800, he oversaw the purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory from France, and sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the new west. His second term was beset with troubles at home, such as the failed treason trial of his former Vice President Aaron Burr. With escalating trouble with Britain who was challenging American neutrality and threatening shipping at sea, he tried economic warfare with his embargo laws which only damaged American trade. In 1803, President Jefferson initiated a process of Indian tribal removal and relocation to the Louisiana Territory west of the Mississippi River, in order to open lands for eventual American settlers.
|
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.
Crime
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
|
|
Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.
Dishonesty
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.
Economics
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, then and only then will truth, prevail over fanaticism
Fanaticism
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
|
|
A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences
Government
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
|
|
|
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
Government
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
Health
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
|
The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance
Ignorance
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
|
|
|
|
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Liberty
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
|
|
We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Mankind
Quotes, by Thomas Jefferson
|
|
|
