Thomas Jefferson Politics Quotations

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

We often repent of what we have said, but never, never, of that which we have not.

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.

If the book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

I could say much about politics, our only entertainment here, but you would not care a fig about that.

We are completely saddled and bridled, and... the bank is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where it will guide.

I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.

If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation, none.

No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.

...is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? ...the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless.

By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.

Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.

I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.

We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.

Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.

Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies.

The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.

With nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.

Truth between candid minds can never do harm.

Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error.

Every man has a commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error.

With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions.

He alone who walks strict and upright, and who, in matters of opinion, will be contented that others should be as free as himself and acquiesce when his opinion is freely overruled, will attain his object in the end.

I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.

We ought not to schismatize on either men or measures. Principles alone can justify that.

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.

Where thought is free in its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself.

I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.

Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason.

Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.

Truth and reason are eternal. They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail; however, in times and places they may be overborne for a while by violence, military, civil, or ecclesiastical.

We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.

Anarchy [is] necessarily consequent to inefficiency.

The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.

The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it.

It will be said that great societies cannot exist without government.

The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.

The first object of human association [is] the full improvement of their condition.