The quotations of

Thomas Jefferson

Founding Father, U.S. president from 1801 to 1809

1743–1826

73 quotes, most often on Government, America and Truth & Lies. Part of the U.S. Presidents and Founding Fathers collections.

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (1801)
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 January 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh 18:ii
- Journalism
It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.
Letter to Arthur Campbell (1797)
- America
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt…If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.
From a letter to John Taylor (June 1798), after the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts
- Government
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
On members of the clergy who sought to establish some form of “official” Christianity in the U.S. government. Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush (23 September 1800)
Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (1801)
- Debate
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Letter to Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (24 April 1816)
- Education
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The Declaration of Independence (1776), Declaration of Independence (1776)In context
- America
- Honor
We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
Letter to William Roscoe (27 December 1820)
- Truth & Lies
There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.
Letter to Henry Lee (15 May 1826)
- Truth & Lies
Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both.
Letter to John Adams (1 August 1816)
- Education
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
Letter to Richard Price (8 January 1789)
- Government
No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].
Draft Constitution for Virginia (June 1776)
- Guns
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
Letter to George Washington (1796); published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 20 Vols., Washington, D.C., (1903-04), 9:341
- Guns
We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.
On slavery, in a letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)
- Slavery

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