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Find a Thomas Jefferson Quote
Looking for a Thomas Jefferson Quote? These quotes are from his own letters,
writings and speeches. Thomas Jefferson was also the main author of the
Declaration of Independence.
Thomas Jefferson's observations about current events
of his day have a unique application to events today. Each Thomas Jefferson
Quote is listed in chronological order 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.
A Thomas Jefferson Quote for you!
"We were laboring under a dropsical fulness of circulating medium. Nearly all
of it is now called in by the banks, who have the regulation of the safety-valves
of our fortunes, and who condense and explode them at their will. Lands in this
State cannot now be sold for a year’s rent; and unless our Legislature have wisdom
enough to effect a remedy by a gradual diminution only of the medium, there will be
a general revolution of property in this state." - Letter to John Adams, November
7, 1819
"All the States but our own are sensible that knowledge is power." - Letter
to Joseph C. Cabell, January 22, 1820
"We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him
go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." - Letter
to John Holmes, April 22, 1820
"But this momentous question (the Missouri Compromise), like a firebell in the
night awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it the knell of the
Union." - Letter to John Holmes, April 22, 1820
"I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would
sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach in any
practicable way. The cession of that kind of property-for so it is misnamed
is a bagatelle (possession) which would not cost me a second thought if, in
that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and
gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But as it is, we
have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him
go." - Letter to John Holmes, April 22, 1820
"...an establishment which I contemplate as the future bulwark of the human
mind in this hemisphere." - Letter to Thomas Cooper, about the University
of Virginia, August 14, 1820
"When the Legislative or Executive functionaries act unconstitutionally,
they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption
of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know no safe depository
of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we
think them (the people) not enlightened enough to exercise their control
with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but
to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of
abuses of constitutional power." - Letter to William Charles Jarvis,
September 28, 1820
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Thomas Jefferson Quote!
Monticello - Home of
Thomas Jefferson
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but
the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not
to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.
This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."
- Letter to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820
"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave." - Letter
to Richard Rush, October 20, 1820
"I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most
pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man..."
- Letter to Jared Sparks, November 4, 1820
"The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our
poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid
for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if
systematically arranged." - Letter to Joseph C. Cabell, November 28,
1820
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Thomas Jefferson Quote
"But I am far from presuming to direct the reading of my fellow citizens,
who are good enough judges themselves of what is worthy their reading."
- Letter to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820
"The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and
miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of
our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a
co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and
supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet, and they
are too well versed in English law to forget the maxim, boni judicis
est ampliare juris-dictionem. We shall see if they are bold enough to
take the daring stride their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do,
then, with the editor of our book, in his address to the public, I will
say, that "against this every man should raise his voice," and more,
should uplift his arm. Who wrote this admirable address? Sound, luminous,
strong, not a word too much, nor one which can be changed but for the
worse. That pen should go on, lay bare these wounds of our constitution,
expose the decisions seriatim, and arouse, as it is able, the attention
of the nation to these bold speculators on its patience. Having found,
from experience, that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere
scare-crow, they consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from
responsibility to public opinion, the only remaining hold on them,
under a practice first introduced into England by Lord Mansfield. An
opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one,
delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy
or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the
law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning." - Letter to
Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820
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"A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing;
but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a
republican government." - Letter to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820
"This institution of my native state, the hobby of my old age, will be
based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and to
expose every subject susceptible of it's contemplation." - Letter to
Destutt de Tracy, about the University of Virginia, December 26, 1820
"The disease of liberty is catching; those armies will take it in the
south, carry it thence to their own country, spread there the infection
of revolution and representative government, and raise its people from
the prone condition of brutes to the erect altitude of man." - Letter
to the Marquis de Lafayette, December 26, 1820
"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human
mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead,
nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
- Letter to William Roscoe, about the University of Virginia, December
27, 1820
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate
any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." - Letter to
William Roscoe, December 27, 1820
"That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not
to be expected." - Autobiography, about the U. S. Congress, January 6,
1821
"I had hoped... that we should open with the next year an institution on
which the fortunes of our country may depend more than may meet the general
eye. The reflections that the boys of this age are to be the men of the next;
that they should be prepared to receive the holy charge which we are
cherishing to deliver over to them; that in establishing an institution of
wisdom for them, we secure it to all our future generations; that in fulfilling
this duty, we bring home to our own bosoms the sweet consolation of seeing our
sons rising under a luminous tuition, to destinies of high promise."
- Letter to General James Breckinridge, about the University of Virginia,
February 15, 1821
"It is the last act of usefulness I can render, and could I see it open I
would not ask an hour more of life." - Letter to Judge Spencer Roane,
about the University of Virginia, March 9, 1821
"The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity,
ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by
step, and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments
into the jaws of that which feeds them." - Letter to Judge Spencer Roane,
March 9, 1821
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth
and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the
pruning knife." - Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, March 9, 1821
"The Declaration of Independence... (is the) declaratory charter of our rights,
and the rights of man." - Letter to Samuel Adams Wells, May 12, 1821
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Did you enjoy this Thomas Jefferson Quote page? Check out these inspirational
quotations from some other Founding Fathers
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