“It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the man of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights . . . In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

–Thomas Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions, 1798

“The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning-knife.”

–Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821

“The second office of this government is honorable & easy, the first is but a splendid misery.”

–Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1797.

“I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another.”

–Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 1808.

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

–Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782.

“Our true interest will be best promoted by making all the just claims of our fellow citizens, wherever situated, our own; by urging and enforcing them with the weight of our whole influence; and by exercising in every instance a just government in their concerns, and making common cause even where our separate interest would seem opposed to theirs … I sincerely wish that the whole Union may accomodate their interests to each other, and play into their hands mutually as members of the same family, that the wealth and strength of any one part should be viewed as the wealth and strength of the whole.”

–Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, August 11, 1786

“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”

–Thomas Jefferson to President James Monroe, 1823

“But I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to him, and not to the priests. I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another.”

–Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, 1816

“I know well that no man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it.”

–Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, Monticello, December 27, 1796

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.”

–Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, June 12, 1816

“By going to the College I shall get a more universal Acquaintance, which may hereafter be serviceable to me; and I suppose I can pursue my Studies in the Greek and Latin as well there as here, and likewise learn something of the Mathematics.”

–Thomas Jefferson to John Harvie, Shadwell, January 14, 1760