Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Determine never to be idle... It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
 
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

I cannot live without books.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

Never spend your money before you have it.

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are sterilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for 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.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.

I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.

Health is worth more than learning.

If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

I read no newspaper now but Ritchie's, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.