Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
Thomas Jefferson

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.
Thomas Jefferson

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
Thomas Jefferson

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson

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

I cannot live without books.
Thomas Jefferson

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

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.
Thomas Jefferson

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas Jefferson

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
Thomas Jefferson

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Thomas Jefferson

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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.
Thomas Jefferson