Thomas Jefferson

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

I know of 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 a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

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.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

We never repent of having eaten too little.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

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?