Thomas Jefferson quotes for UPSC

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

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.

Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

Whether the succeeding generation is to be more virtuous than their predecessors, I cannot say; but I am sure they will have more worldly wisdom, and enough, I hope, to know that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth.

I believe... that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

Delay is preferable to error.

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

The law books abound with similar instances of the care the judges take of the public integrity, Laws, moreover, abridging the natural right of the citizen, should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.

Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

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.

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.

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art. To give praise which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.

In a democratic republic, where the mass of the people of all parties have the same interest at stake, some respect must be had to the feelings and wishes of the minority, especially when that minority is large and clamorous; otherwise, it will be impossible to avoid discord, and discord weakens the bonds of union.

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

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

I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.

The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

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

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture; especially, a bread grain; next in value to bread is oil.

But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

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

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

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.

History has informed us that bodies of men, as well as individuals, are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of both.

He who steadily observes the moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.

Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.

Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. I may grow rich by art I am compelled to follow, I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment, but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve & abhor.

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

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.

A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.

The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never therefore to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

I never consider a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.