Thomas Jefferson Quotes

“A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.”

“An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.”

“Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”

“But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.”

“Delay is preferable to error.”

“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”

“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.”

“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

“Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.”

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

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

“Every generation needs a new revolution.”

“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

“Half a loaf is better than no bread.”

“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”

“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.”

“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.”

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”

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

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”

“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

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

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

“If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.”

“Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.”

“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”

“Never spend your money before you have it.”