Thomas Jefferson

One war, such as that of our Revolution, is enough for one life.

We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience. We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities.

Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.

I value peace, and I should unwillingly see any event take place which would render war a necessary resource.

For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal.

Take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it for yourself, and then all the world will love you.

Truth between candid minds can never do harm.

Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Nothing but good can result from an exchange of information and opinions between those whose circumstances and morals admit no doubt of the integrity of their views.

We ought not to schismatize on either men or measures. Principles alone can justify that.

With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions.

I hold it certain that to open the doors of truth and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent.

If virtuous, the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics.

I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.

Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.

Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason.

We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.

To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.

Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.

It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that [a society without government, as among our Indians] is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population.

The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it.