Tag: Thomas Jefferson

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

Thomas Jefferson

I have ever deemed it more honorable and profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

Thomas Jefferson

In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.

Thomas Jefferson

There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.

Thomas Jefferson

“A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life”

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do to-day.

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

Never spend your money before you have it.

Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.

Take things always by their smooth handle.

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

Thomas Jefferson

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, whigs and tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last appellation of aristocrats and democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.

Thomas Jefferson

I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin.

Thomas Jefferson

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

Thomas Jefferson

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.

Thomas Jefferson

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, and to talk by the hour?

Thomas Jefferson