Thomas Jefferson

Cultivators of the earth are the most virtuous and independent citizens.

If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption.

The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government

I pledge undying hostility to any government restrictions on the free minds of the people.

The issue for patents for new discovers has given a spring to invention beyond my conception.

Take things always by their smooth handle.

While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise.

Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!

Health is the requisite after morality

Honesty, disinterestedness and good nature are indispensable to procure the esteem and confidence of those with whom we live, and on whose esteem our happiness depends.

No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity

Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.

No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.

No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.

Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.

No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.

A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.

Doubts and jealousies often beget the facts they fear.

Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.