Famous Quotes by Thomas Jefferson (116 Quotations)

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Thomas Jefferson – [Happiness]

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time till at length it becomes habitual.

Thomas Jefferson – [Lies and Lying]

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson – [Honesty]

How much pain worries have cost us that have never happened?

Thomas Jefferson – [Worry]

I cannot live without books.

Thomas Jefferson – [Books and Reading]

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely happier for it.

Thomas Jefferson – [Newspapers]

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

Thomas Jefferson – [Luck]

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

Thomas Jefferson – [Censure]

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Thomas Jefferson – [Power]

I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office

Thomas Jefferson – [Government]

I have not observed men's honesty to increase with their riches.

Thomas Jefferson – [Money]

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Thomas Jefferson – [Tyranny]

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. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Thomas Jefferson – [Rebellion]

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

Thomas Jefferson – [Power]

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

Thomas Jefferson – [Dreams]

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 – [Bankers and Banking]

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

Thomas Jefferson – [Generals]

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

Thomas Jefferson – [Injustice]

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

Thomas Jefferson – [Liberty]

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

Thomas Jefferson – [Luck]