THOMAS JEFFERSON

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly."

"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing."

"An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes."

"All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world."

"Be polite to all, but intimate with few."

"I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more."

"Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time."

"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you."

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

"Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love."

"Good wine is a necessity of life for me."

"How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened."

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind."

"How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!"

"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another."

"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

"Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom."

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

"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."

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

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

"I cannot live without books."

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."

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

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

"If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions."

"In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."

"I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led."

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

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

"It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape."

"Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident."

"Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day."

"No people can be both ignorant and free."

"It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice."

"Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you."

"Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly."

"On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock."

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry."

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it."

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none"

"Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves."

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

"Who you are will show in what you do."