Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

Truth can stand by itself...If there be but one right [religion], and [Christianity] that one, we should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth.

If God is just, I tremble for my country.

All we can do is to make the best of our friends, love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way what is bad.

Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep.

I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more. ( Letter to John Banister, Jr., June 19, 1787)

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. { Letter to celebrated scientist Alexander von Humboldt , 6 December, 1813 }