Thomas Jefferson Philosophical Quotes — Page 21

Politician, Founding Father

Philosophical

“This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.”

War Peace Honesty

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Thomas Jefferson

Politician, Founding Father

Philosophical

“Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.”

Political Silence Politics

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Philosophical

“That government that governs least governs best.”

Government

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Philosophical

“The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also.”

Men Ambition

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Philosophical

“Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.”

Law Foundation Common Sense

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Philosophical

“What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.... [Instead] reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?”

Support Errors Hypocrite

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Philosophical

“Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear... Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision.”

Mind Decision Heaven

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Philosophical

“The foundation on which (our government is) built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office, and particularly the denial of a pre-eminence by birth.”

Men Office Foundation

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Philosophical

“He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force.”

Law Force Difficulty

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Philosophical

“[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.”

Government Liberty Miracle

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Philosophical

“Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.”

Men Eye Knowledge

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Philosophical

“Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it is what I have steadfastly believed.”

Believe Perfect Happiness

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Thomas Jefferson — Philosophical Quotes

Thomas Jefferson Quotes