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With nations, as with individuals, our interests soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties; and history bears witness to the fact, that a just nation is taken on its word, when recourse is had to armaments, and wars to bridle others.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Second Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1805
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Norvell, Jun. 11, 1807
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Norvell, Jun. 11, 1807
Defamation is becoming a necessary of life; insomuch, that a dish of tea in the morning or evening cannot be digested without this stimulant. Even those who do not believe these abominations, still read them with complaisance to their auditors, and instead of the abhorrence and indignation which should fill a virtuous mind, betray a secret pleasure in the possibility that some may believe them, though they do not themselves.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Norvell, Jun. 11, 1807
It is not he who prints, but he who pays for printing a slander, who is its real author.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Norvell, Jun. 11, 1807
I will not say that public life is the line for making a fortune. But it furnishes a decent and honorable support, and places one's children on good grounds for public favor.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Wirt, Jan. 10, 1808
I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Rev. Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808
Having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than the same are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there; for there competition brings it down to the minimum value.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William B. Bibb, Jul. 28, 1808
A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence, and good-humor, will go far toward securing to you the estimation of the world.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Nov. 24, 1808
From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox-hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the great council of the nation, well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse-jockey, a fox-hunter, an orator, or the honest advocate of my country's rights?
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Nov. 24, 1808
In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue. It is the practice of sacrificing to those whom we meet in society, all the little inconveniences and preferences which will gratify them, and deprive us of nothing worth a moment's consideration; it is the giving a pleasing and flattering turn to our expressions, which will conciliate others, and make them pleased with us as well as themselves. How cheap a price for the good will of another!
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Nov. 24, 1808
I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Nov. 24, 1808
When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, He has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? If a fact be misstated, it is probable he is gratified by a belief of it, and I have no right to deprive him of the gratification. If he wants information, he will ask it, and then I will give it in measured terms; but if he still believes his own story, and shows a desire to dispute the fact with me, I hear him and say nothing. It is his affair, not mine, if he prefers error.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Nov. 24, 1808
Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Nov. 24, 1808
The physician is happy in the attachment of the families in which he practices. All think he has saved one of them, and he finds himself everywhere a welcome guest, a home in every house.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Judge David Campbell, Jan. 28, 1810
The practice of Kings marrying only in the families of Kings has been that of Europe for some centuries. Now, take any race of animals, confine them in idleness and inaction, whether in a sty, a stable, or a state-room, pamper them with high diet, gratify all their sexual appetites, immerse them in sensualities, nourish their passions, let everything bend before them, and banish whatever might lead them to think, and in a few generations they become all body and no mind; and this, too, by a law of nature, by that very law by which we are in the constant practice of changing the characters and propensities of the animals we raise for our own purposes. Such is the regimen in raising Kings, and in this way they have gone on for centuries.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Governor John Langdon, Mar. 5, 1810
It is wonderful to me that old men should not be sensible that their minds keep pace with their bodies in the progress of decay.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Aug. 17, 1811
Nothing betrays imbecility so much as the being insensible of it.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Aug. 17, 1811
Had not a conviction of the danger to which an unlimited occupation of the executive chair would expose the republican Constitution of our Government, made it conscientiously a duty to retire when I did, the fear of becoming a dotard and of being insensible of it, would of itself have resisted all solicitations to remain.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Aug. 17, 1811
There is a fulness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Aug. 17, 1811
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow-citizens.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Melish, Jan. 13, 1812
By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Melish, Jan. 13, 1812
It is a wise rule, and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principal within a given term.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John W. Eppes, Jun. 24, 1813
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826
I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Plumer, July 21, 1816
Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Charles W. Peale, August 20, 1811
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned -- this is the sum of good government.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1801
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