I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson

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.
Thomas Jefferson

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
Thomas Jefferson

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
Thomas Jefferson

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

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson

If God is just, I tremble for my country.
Thomas Jefferson

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson

If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
Thomas Jefferson

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.
Thomas Jefferson

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

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

In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
Thomas Jefferson

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Thomas Jefferson

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

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
Thomas Jefferson