The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
Thomas Jefferson

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
Thomas Jefferson

The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
Thomas Jefferson

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Thomas Jefferson

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.
Thomas Jefferson

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.
Thomas Jefferson

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very fast.
Thomas Jefferson

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

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

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.
Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson

We never repent of having eaten too little.
Thomas Jefferson

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thomas Jefferson