Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
THOMAS JEFFERSONIn questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.
More Thomas Jefferson Quotes
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Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
When angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.
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.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
I cannot live without books.
THOMAS JEFFERSON -
Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
THOMAS JEFFERSON