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Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
Quotes by Thomas Jefferson. These quotes are from his own letters,
writings and speeches. Learn from the wisdom of this hero of the American
Revolutionary War and author of the
Declaration of Independence. Quotes by Thomas Jefferson are listed chronologically
with links to more at the bottom.
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Thomas Jefferson |
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For a list of interesting Thomas Jefferson facts click here.
Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
"With respect to the boys I never till lately doubted but that I should be
able to give them a competence as comfortable farmers, and no station is
more honorable or happy than that." - Letter to Thomas Mann Randolph,
July 30, 1821
"It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its
expression, (although I do not choose to put it into a newspaper, nor,
like a Priam in armor, offer myself its champion,) that the germ of
dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the
federal judiciary: an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely
a scare-crow,) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little
to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step 1ike a
thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from
the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one."
- Letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821
"The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution
of the federal judiciary: an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely
a scare-crow,) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little
to-day and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief,
over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States,
and the government of all be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed;
because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great
things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all it will render
powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become
as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
- Letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821
"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things,
shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render
powerless the checks provided of one government on another." - Letter
to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821
"And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the
science and libraries of Europe, this country remains to preserve and
restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the
fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be
extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they
will consume these engines and all who work them." - Letter to John
Adams, September 12, 1821
"In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the
county in which I live (Albemarle County, Virginia), and so continued
until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body
for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected:
and indeed, during the regal government, nothing (like this) could
expect success." - Autobiography, 1821
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Quotes by Thomas Jefferson!
Monticello - Home of
Thomas Jefferson
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we
should soon want bread." - Autobiography, 1821
"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be
otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose
trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the
hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be
expected." - Autobiography, 1821
"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against
absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is
the spot of every wind. With such persons, gullability, which they
call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind
becomes a wreck." - Letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822
"It is a duty certainly to give our sparings to those who want; but
to see also that they are faithfully distributed, and duly apportioned
to the respective wants of those receivers. And why give through agents
whom we know not, to persons whom we know not, and in countries from
which we get no account, where we can do it at short hand, to objects
under our eye, through agents we know, and to supply wants we see?"
- Letter to Michael Megear, May 29, 1823
"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore,
be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not
to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean
everything or nothing at pleasure." - Letter to William Johnson, June
12, 1823
"To preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and
cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that has established.
These are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we
shall be in danger of foundering." - Letter to Judge William Johnson,
June 12, 1823
"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when
the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the
debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the
text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it
was passed." - Letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823
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Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
"The Court determined at once, that being an original process, they had
no Cognizance of it; and therefore the question before them was ended.
But the Chief Justice went to lay down what the law would be, had they
jurisdiction of the case, to-wit: that they should command the delivery.
The object was clearly to instruct any other court having the jurisdiction,
what they should do if Marbury should apply to them. Besides the impropriety
of this gratuitous interference, could anything exceed the perversion of
law?" - Letter to Judge William Johnson, June 12, 1823
"The States can best govern our home concerns and the general government
our foreign ones. I wish, therefore... never to see all offices transferred
to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they
may more secretly be bought and sold at market." - Letter to Judge
William Johnson, June 12, 1823
"On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when
the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates,
and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or
invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
- Letter to Justice William Johnson, June 12, 1823
"I know only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it.
I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether,
and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before." - Letter
to James Madison, commenting on the Declaration of Independence, August 30,
1823
"I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the
opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the
history of our country." - Letter to Hugh P. Taylor, October 4, 1823
"It is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities which
occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our
country." - Letter to Hugh P. Taylor, October 4, 1823
"Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace." - Letter to James
Monroe, October 24, 1823
"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed
to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience,
however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous;
that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them
a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming
to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public
at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent,
sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and
working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that
that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming
its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if
secured against all liability to account." - Letter to Monsieur A.
Coray, October 31, 1823
"A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of
all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest
and unoppressive." - Letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, 1823
"In my catalogue, considering ethics, as well as religion, as supplements
to law in the government of man, I had placed them in that sequence."
- Letter to Judge Augustus Woodward, March 24, 1824
"I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as preeminent
specimens of logic, taste and that sententious brevity which, using not a
word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer.
Amplification is the vice of modern oratory." - Letter to David
Harding, April 20, 1824
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quotations from some other Founding Fathers
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