Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Wisdom
-
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
→ -
I long to be in the midst of the children, and have more pleasure in their little follies than in the wisdom of the wise.
→ -
To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association-the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.
→ -
A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.
→ -
The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.
→ -
If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's.
→ -
An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies.
→ -
The banks themselves were doing business on capitals three-fourths of which were fictitious. This fictitious capital... is now to be lost, and to fall on somebody; it must take on those who have property to meet it, and probably on the less cautious part, who, not aware of the impending catastrophe, have suffered themselves to contract, or to be in debt, and must now sacrifice their property of a value many times the amount of the debt. We have been truly sowing the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind.
→ -
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
→ -
At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about "a public debt being a public blessing"; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams.
→ -
We are completely saddled and bridled, and... the bank is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where it will guide.
→ -
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion... We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half, for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion.
→ -
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
→ -
If you have to eat crow, eat it while it's young and tender.
→ -
A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
→ -
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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.
→ -
We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.
→ -
preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.
→ -
The possession of facts is knowledge; the use of them is wisdom.
→ -
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature.
→ -
The only way to win money out of a casino is to own one.
→ -
It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.
→ -
We are overdone with banking institutions, which have banished the precious metals, and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium... These have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness... These are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.
→ -
A community of small farmers... land property owners, will be the only assurance that the freedom our republic offers will be guaranteed to each and every citizen.
→ -
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
→ -
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
→ -
I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.
→ -
It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.
→ -
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.
→ -
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
→
Related Authors
-
Benjamin Franklin Founding Father of the United States -
Alexander Hamilton Founding Father of the United States -
Jefferson Davis Former President of the Confederate States of America -
Andrew Jackson 7th U.S. President -
Franklin D. Roosevelt 32nd U.S. President -
Theodore Roosevelt 26th U.S. President -
Ronald Reagan 40th U.S. President -
John Locke Philosopher -
George Washington 1st U.S. President -
Abigail Adams Former First Lady of the United States -
James Madison 4th U.S. President -
Patrick Henry Governor of Virginia -
Abraham Lincoln 16th U.S. President -
John Adams 2nd U.S. President -
Marquis de Lafayette Political figure -
Aaron Burr Former Vice President of the United States -
John Quincy Adams 6th U.S. President -
Ulysses S. Grant 18th U.S. President -
James Monroe 5th U.S. President -
Thomas Paine Author