Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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

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

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.””

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

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.””

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

“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.””

“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.””

“The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.””

“I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. , , , , are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.[]””