The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.
Thomas JeffersonTags: government
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas JeffersonTags: truth
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Thomas JeffersonThe whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.
Thomas JeffersonTags: honesty government
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Thomas JeffersonIf we could believe that he [Jesus] really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers [Gospels] father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor... We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications... That sect [Jews] had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust... Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law... That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.
[Letter to William Short, 4 August, 1820]
Tags: reason lies skeptic freethinker skepticism new-testament yahweh judaism cruel fake freethought god-of-abraham imposter jehovah
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
Thomas JeffersonIt is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.
Thomas JeffersonTags: democracy
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas JeffersonTags: government policy
I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas JeffersonTags: politics freedom government
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