110+ Thomas Jefferson Quotes On Government, Constitution And Education

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. He was a Founding Father who was instrumental in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and later the United States Constitution. He was also a planter, philosopher, and statesman who championed individual liberty and pushed for the expansion of the United States. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Thomas Jefferson on government, constitution, education.

Top 10 Thomas Jefferson Quotes

1. Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
2. I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.
3. The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
4. I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
5. When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
6. Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
7. I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more luck I have.
8. Truth between candid minds can never do harm.
9. Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
10. Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!

Thomas Jefferson Short Quotes

• When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
• On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.
• Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
• Equal rights for all, special privileges for none
• Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.
• Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
• Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality
• Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
• Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to the truth.
• Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Government

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. — Thomas Jefferson

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. — Thomas Jefferson

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite. — Thomas Jefferson

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors. — Thomas Jefferson

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government. — Thomas Jefferson

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. — Thomas Jefferson

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office. — Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. — Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Constitution

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. — Thomas Jefferson

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. — Thomas Jefferson

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution. — Thomas Jefferson

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. — Thomas Jefferson

The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights — Thomas Jefferson

When all government ...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, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. — Thomas Jefferson

I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet. — Thomas Jefferson

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. — Thomas Jefferson

I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents. — Thomas Jefferson

[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Education

The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate. — Thomas Jefferson

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people. — Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing, but newspapers. — Thomas Jefferson

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both. — Thomas Jefferson

If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education. — Thomas Jefferson

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. — Thomas Jefferson

A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry. — Thomas Jefferson

Health is worth more than learning. — Thomas Jefferson

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Success

A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither. — Thomas Jefferson

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. — Thomas Jefferson

Action will delineate and define you. — Thomas Jefferson

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses. — Thomas Jefferson

Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. — Thomas Jefferson

. . . in the full tide of successful experiment. — Thomas Jefferson

I have much confidence that we shall proceed successfully for ages to come. My hope of its duration is built much on the enlargement of the resources of life going hand in hand with the enlargement of territory. — Thomas Jefferson

The failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another. — Thomas Jefferson

The expedition of Messrs. Lewis & Clarke for exploring the river Missouri, & the best communication from that to the Pacific ocean, has had all the success which could have been expected. — Thomas Jefferson

The reward of esteem, respect and gratitude [is] due to those who devote their time and efforts to render the youths of every successive age fit governors for the next. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Law

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. — Thomas Jefferson

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. — Thomas Jefferson

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. — Thomas Jefferson

If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism. — Thomas Jefferson

I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man. — Thomas Jefferson

Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy. — Thomas Jefferson

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. — Thomas Jefferson

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. — Thomas Jefferson

the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. — Thomas Jefferson

Taste cannot be controlled by law. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Revolution

Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under protection of habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. — Thomas Jefferson

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. — Thomas Jefferson

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. — Thomas Jefferson

That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. — Thomas Jefferson

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. — Thomas Jefferson

Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. — Thomas Jefferson

Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance. — Thomas Jefferson

All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow. — Thomas Jefferson

Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skinsand furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Liberty

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. — Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. — Thomas Jefferson

A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. — Thomas Jefferson

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave. — Thomas Jefferson

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. — Thomas Jefferson

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

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. — Thomas Jefferson

Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that ... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support. — Thomas Jefferson

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. — Thomas Jefferson

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Bill Of Rights

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. — Thomas Jefferson

To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition. — Thomas Jefferson

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for. — Thomas Jefferson

The declaration of rights [Bill of Rights] is, like all other human blessings, alloyed with some inconveniences and not accomplishing fully its object. But the good in this instance vastly outweighs the evil. — Thomas Jefferson

There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded...2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last. — Thomas Jefferson

I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Independence

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. — Thomas Jefferson

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. — Thomas Jefferson

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands. — Thomas Jefferson

And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. — Thomas Jefferson

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Thomas Jefferson

A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free. — Thomas Jefferson

Agriculture is at the same time the most tranquil, healthy, and independent occupation. — Thomas Jefferson

We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour. — Thomas Jefferson

The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man. — Thomas Jefferson

May it be to the world... to assume the blessings and security of self-government. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Enlightenment

I know of 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. — Thomas Jefferson

The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being — Thomas Jefferson

Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree. — Thomas Jefferson

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. — Thomas Jefferson

This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe. at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together. — Thomas Jefferson

Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About People

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people. — Thomas Jefferson

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. — Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. — Thomas Jefferson

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy. — Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. — Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights. — Thomas Jefferson

The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. — Thomas Jefferson

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. — Thomas Jefferson

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Life

The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset. — Thomas Jefferson

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family. — Thomas Jefferson

A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life. — Thomas Jefferson

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. — Thomas Jefferson

A room without books is like a life without meaning. — Thomas Jefferson

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. — Thomas Jefferson

The worst day in a man's life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing. — Thomas Jefferson

Good wine is a necessity of life for me. — Thomas Jefferson

I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second. — Thomas Jefferson

Difference of opinion is helpful in religion. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Happiness

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy? — Thomas Jefferson

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind. — Thomas Jefferson

A mind always employed is always happy. — Thomas Jefferson

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity. — Thomas Jefferson

I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowlege among the people. no other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness. — Thomas Jefferson

I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man. — Thomas Jefferson

Traveling makes a man wiser, but less happy. — Thomas Jefferson

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Mind

Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck. — Thomas Jefferson

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man. — Thomas Jefferson

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. — Thomas Jefferson

Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. — Thomas Jefferson

A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written. — Thomas Jefferson

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to it, meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil; while fretting and fuming only serves to increase your own torments. — Thomas Jefferson

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism. — Thomas Jefferson

To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement — Thomas Jefferson

It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan. — Thomas Jefferson

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a public debt being a public blessing"; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams. — Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Famous Quotes And Sayings

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil. — Thomas Jefferson

When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state — Thomas Jefferson

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. — Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. — Thomas Jefferson

Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame. — Thomas Jefferson

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. — Thomas Jefferson

An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens. — Thomas Jefferson

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning. — Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that 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

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

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it. — Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have earned it. — Thomas Jefferson

The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart. — Thomas Jefferson

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. — Thomas Jefferson

Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other. — Thomas Jefferson

A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle. — Thomas Jefferson

The only security of all is in a free press. — Thomas Jefferson

An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy. — Thomas Jefferson

What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. — Thomas Jefferson

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. — Thomas Jefferson

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other. — Thomas Jefferson

We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists — Thomas Jefferson

A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny. — Thomas Jefferson

Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country. — Thomas Jefferson

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. — Thomas Jefferson

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. — 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 permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time. — Thomas Jefferson

My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just — Thomas Jefferson

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. — Thomas Jefferson

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. — Thomas Jefferson

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others. — Thomas Jefferson

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. — Thomas Jefferson

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. — Thomas Jefferson

Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable for, not the rightness, but the uprightness of the decision — Thomas Jefferson

If the book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose. — Thomas Jefferson

A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government. — Thomas Jefferson

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. — Thomas Jefferson

A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate. — Thomas Jefferson

My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there. — Thomas Jefferson

The example of changing a constitution by assembling the wise men of the state, instead of assembling armies, will be worth as much to the world as the former examples we had give them. The constitution, too, which was the result of our deliberation, is unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men. — Thomas Jefferson

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read. — Thomas Jefferson

Life Lessons by Thomas Jefferson

1. Thomas Jefferson taught us to never give up, even in the face of adversity. He persevered through many difficult moments in his life and ultimately became one of the most influential presidents in American history.
2. He also taught us the importance of staying true to our values and beliefs, no matter what the cost. He was a strong advocate for democracy and the rights of the people, and he fought for these ideals throughout his life.
3. Finally, Thomas Jefferson taught us the importance of education and knowledge. He was an avid reader and believed that knowledge was the key to success. He encouraged others to learn as much as they could and to use their knowledge to make the world a better place.