Thomas Jefferson

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

“My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.”

“I cannot live without books.”

“Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”

“The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.”

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

“Taste cannot be controlled by law.”

“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

“Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.”

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

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

“History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.”

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

“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”

“For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.”

“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”

“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.”

“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

“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.”