Thomas Jefferson Quotes

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves.

• government

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

• freedom
• slavery

I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared.

• debt
• thrift

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual profusion and servitude.

• government
• taxes

If we can prevent the Government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

• government
• taxes

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

• business

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

• freedom

For thus I estimate the qualities of the mind: 1, good humor; 2, integrity; 3, industry; 4, science. The preference of the first to the second quality may not at first be acquiesced in; but certainly we had all rather associate with a good-humored, light-principled man, than with an ill-tempered rigorist in morality.

• integrity
• personality
• initiative

All we can do is to make the best of our friends: love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way of what is bad: but no more think of rejecting them for it than of throwing away a piece of music for a flat passage or two.

• friends