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.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Letter to Thomas Cooper (29 November 1802)
- America
- Government
The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
Letter to John Adams (12 September 1821)
- America
It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate⁠—to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.
- America
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
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
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.
Posthumous publications
- America
- Life & Death
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Declaration of Independence (1776), Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776), which he draftedIn context
- America
- Liberty
When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
The Declaration of Independence (1776)In context
We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved
The Declaration of Independence (1776)In context
- America
- Freedom

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