Thomas Jefferson citations (458 citations, Page 10)

Thomas Jefferson: 458 citations0 J'aime

Thomas Jefferson Citations

“Que nous faut-il pour faire de nous un peuple heureux et prospère? Un gouvernement sage et frugal, qui retiendra les hommes de se porter tort l'un à l'autre, et pour le reste les laissera libres de régler leurs propres efforts d'industrie et de progrès, et n'enlèvera pas de la bouche du travailleur le pain qu'il a gagné. Voilà le résumé du bon gouvernement, et voilà ce qui est nécessaire pour boucler le cercle de nos félicités. »”

Thomas Jefferson

With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens,—A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
en
Premier discours inaugural, 4 mars 1801

“Chez vous, chers citoyens, vous-mêmes savez au mieux si nous avons fait bien ou mal. La suppression d'agences non nécessaires, d'inutiles établissements et dépenses, nous a permis d'interrompre nos taxes internes. Celles-ci couvrant notre terre d'agents, et ouvrant nos portes à leurs intrusions, avaient déjà entamé ce processus de sanction intime qui, une fois lancé, peut rarement être empêché d'atteindre successivement chaque article de produit et de propriété.”

Thomas Jefferson

At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.
en
Second discours inaugural, 4 mars 1805

Thomas Jefferson: Citations en anglais

“Our opinion here is that that place has been so deeply concerned in smuggling, that if it wants it is because it has illegally sent away what it ought to have retained for its own consumption.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Lieutenant Governor Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts (November 13, 1808) concerning a petition from the island of Nantucket for food during the American embargo.
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

“I forgot to ask the favor of you to speak to Lilly as to the treatment of the nailers. it would destroy their value in my estimation to degrade them in their own eyes by the whip. this therefore must not be resorted to but in extremities. as they will again be under my government, I would chuse they should retain the stimulus of character.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to colonel Randolph as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012) Attributed

“I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, Paris, (16 January 1787)
1780s

“Botany is the school for patience, and it’s amateurs learn resignation from daily disappointments.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, in letter to Madame de Tessé (25 Apr 1788). In Thomas Jefferson Correspondence: Printed from the Originals (1916), 7.
Posthumous publications, On botany

“we have heard as yet only the proceedings of the first day of Burr’s trial, which from the favor of the Marshal and judge promises him all which can depend on them. A grand jury of two federalists, four (Tertium) Quids and ten republicans does not seem to be a fair representation of the state of Virginia. But all this will shew the original error of establishing a judiciary independant of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law can turn it’s guns on those they were meant to defend, and controul and fashion their proceedings to it’s own will. I have always entertained a high opinion of the Marshal’s integrity and political correctness. But, in a state where there are not more than eight Quids, how five of them should have been summoned on one jury is difficult to explain from accident.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John W. Eppes (28 May 1807) https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5646 1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

“I may say Christianity itself divided into its thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and torturing one another for abstractions which no one of them understand, and which are indeed beyond the comprehension of the human mind”

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Thomas Jefferson

. Letter to George Logan (12 November 1816). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, pp. 43 1810s

“Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicines. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John Adams http://www.masshist.org/database/transcription.cfm?transcriptDir=masshist&transcript=L5058.xml&queryID=1797 (13 November 1818) regarding the death of Abigail Adams 1810s

“The Ambassador [of Tripoli] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter from the commissioners (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson) to John Jay, 28 March 1786, in Thomas Jefferson Travels: Selected Writings, 1784-1789, by Anthony Brandt, pp. 104-105 http://books.google.com/books?id=SY_3VKP0SEkC&pg=PA104&dq=%22Ambassador+Answered%22 1780s Contexte: We took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The Ambassador [of Tripoli] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

“Some have made the love of God the foundation of morality. This, too, is but a branch of our moral duties, which are generally divided into duties to God and duties to man. If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to-wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Thomas Law (13 June 1814)
1810s

“I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John Wyche (19 May 1809)
1800s, Post-Presidency (1809)

“It is literally true that the toleration of banks of paper discount costs the United States one-half their war taxes; or, in other words, doubles the expenses of every war. Now think but for a moment, what a change of condition that would be, which should save half our war expenses, require but half the taxes, and enthral us in debt but half the time.”

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Thomas Jefferson

ME 13:364
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

“At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.”

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Thomas Jefferson

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)

“Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Referring to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom, in his Autobiography (1821)
1820s

“The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to William Hunter (11 March 1790)
1790s

“I am quite at a loss about the nailboys remaining with mr Stewart. they have long been a dead expence instead of profit to me. in truth they require a vigour of discipline to make them do reasonable work, to which he cannot bring himself. on the whole I think it will be best for them also to be removed to mr Lilly’s”

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Thomas Jefferson

control In a letter to James Dinsmore as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012) Attributed

“The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities, of citizens of the United States; and, in the mean time, they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Louisiana Treaty of Cession, Art. III (30 April 1803)
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)

“I know 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 wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to William Charles Jarvis (28 September 1820)
1820s

“In our university [of Virginia] you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Thomas Cooper (3 November 1822), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, p. 272 1820s

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].”

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Thomas Jefferson

Vol. 1 Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law (1764) Broken link http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-01_Bk.pdf. Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, p. 459 1760s

“If the debt which the banking companies owe be a blessing to anybody, it is to themselves alone, who are realizing a solid interest of eight or ten per cent on it. As to the public, these companies have banished all our gold and silver medium, which, before their institution, we had without interest, which never could have perished in our hands, and would have been our salvation now in the hour of war; instead of which they have given us two hundred million of froth and bubble, on which we are to pay them heavy interest, until it shall vanish into air… We are warranted, then, in affirming that this parody on the principle of 'a public debt being a public blessing,' and its mutation into the blessing of private instead of public debts, is as ridiculous as the original principle itself. In both cases, the truth is, that capital may be produced by industry, and accumulated by economy; but jugglers only will propose to create it by legerdemain tricks with paper.”

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Thomas Jefferson

ME 13:423
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

“I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”

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Thomas Jefferson

The earliest known appearance of this statement is from 1895 (Joshua Douglass, "Bimetallism and Currency", American Magazine of Civics, 7:256). It is apparently a combination of paraphrases or approximate quotations from three separate letters of Jefferson (longer excerpts in sourced section):
I sincerely believe, with you, that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies...
Letter to John Taylor (1816)
The bank mania...is raising up a moneyed aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance...
Letter to Josephus B. Stuart (1817)
Bank paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.
Letter to John W. Eppes (1813)
Misattributed

“When public opinion changes, it is with the rapidity of thought.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=807&chapter=88152&layout=html&Itemid=27 (6 January 1816) ME 14:384 1810s

“The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it; but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1802. ME 10:323
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“…the more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.”

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Thomas Jefferson

1810s, Letter to Joseph Milligan (6 April 1816)

“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.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Roger C. Weightman, on the decision for Independence made in 1776, often quoted as if in reference solely to the document the Declaration of Independence (24 June 1826)
1820s

“The hour of emancipation is advancing... this enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Edward Coles (25 August 1814)
1810s

“When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion. I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.”

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Thomas Jefferson

The Anas (February 1, 1800). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 1 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-01_Bk.pdf, pp. 352–353 1800s

“Murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. In every stage of these repressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, our repreated petitions have been answered only by repreated injury.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Article No. 20 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbFznb7PSGsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false 1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776), Earlier drafts

“There can be no safer deposit on earth than the Treasury of the United States.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (1825) ME 19:281
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in the four words: 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our enquiries must end.”

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Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John Adams (11 January 1817)
1810s