Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.
— Thomas Jefferson
I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.
Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.
Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.
I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.
In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.
Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
If God is just, I tremble for my country.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
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.
None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
