May Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims.

— Thomas Jefferson

The more a subject is understood, the more briefly it may be explained.

— Thomas Jefferson

Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.

— Thomas Jefferson

Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.

— Thomas Jefferson

There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.

— Thomas Jefferson

All... natural rights may be abridged or modified in [their] exercise by law.

— Thomas Jefferson

May it be to the world... to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

— Thomas Jefferson

We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists

— Thomas Jefferson

Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being…

— Thomas Jefferson

I hope the necessity will at length be seen of establishing institutions, here as in Europe, where every branch of science, useful…

— Thomas Jefferson

My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I…

— Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any…

— Thomas Jefferson

When you are doubting whether a thing is worth the trouble of going to see, recollect that you will never again be…

— Thomas Jefferson

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may…

— Thomas Jefferson

No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact,…

— Thomas Jefferson

I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor…

— Thomas Jefferson

We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within…

— Thomas Jefferson

God has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society,…

— Thomas Jefferson

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place,…

— Thomas Jefferson

Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who…

— Thomas Jefferson

Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and…

— Thomas Jefferson

It is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has…

— Thomas Jefferson

I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will…

— Thomas Jefferson

If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free…

— Thomas Jefferson

The earth belongs to the living. No man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied or the persons who succeed…

— Thomas Jefferson

I join cordially in admiring and revering the Constitution of the United States, the result of the collected wisdom of our country.…

— Thomas Jefferson

We may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the…

— Thomas Jefferson

A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the…

— Thomas Jefferson

Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of…

— Thomas Jefferson

The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by…

— Thomas Jefferson

The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of…

— Thomas Jefferson

We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all…

— Thomas Jefferson

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

— Thomas Jefferson

It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

— Thomas Jefferson

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead…

— Thomas Jefferson

My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

— Thomas Jefferson

Books may be classed from the Faculties of the mind

— Thomas Jefferson

For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

— Thomas Jefferson

I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means,…

— Thomas Jefferson

If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.

— Thomas Jefferson