Top 72 Freedom Thomas Jefferson Quotes
#1. This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson
#2. When all government ... in little as in great things ... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
Thomas Jefferson
#3. It is unfortunate that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors, and even with crimes. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end.
Thomas Jefferson
#4. Individual freedom and individual equality cannot co-exist. I dare say no one since Thomas Jefferson has really believed it.
Katharine Fullerton Gerould
#5. When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.
Thomas Jefferson
#6. We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.
Thomas Jefferson
#7. Our minds and hearts are free to believe everything or nothing at all - and it is our duty to protect and perpetuate this sacred culture of freedom.
Thomas Jefferson
#8. That the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and country.
Thomas Jefferson
#9. I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.
Thomas Jefferson
#10. Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.
Thomas Jefferson
#11. We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Thomas Jefferson
#12. I'd prefer to have dangerous freedom,
than have peaceful slavery
Thomas Jefferson
#13. That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson
#14. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
#15. In a government bottomed on the will of all, the ... liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all.
Thomas Jefferson
#16. The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.
Thomas Jefferson
#17. A community of small farmers ... land property owners, will be the only assurance that the freedom our republic offers will be guaranteed to each and every citizen.
Thomas Jefferson
#18. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under protection of habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
Thomas Jefferson
#19. The sun of her [Great Britain] glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the Channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.
Thomas Jefferson
#20. To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.
Thomas Jefferson
#22. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
#23. 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 Jefferson
#24. Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
Thomas Jefferson
#25. As was said by Thomas Jefferson, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
William R. Forstchen
#27. The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy].
Thomas Jefferson
#28. The law for religious freedom ... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.
Thomas Jefferson
#29. Above all I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to so they won't forget the basic principles of freedom.
Thomas Jefferson
#30. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.
[First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801]
Thomas Jefferson
#31. I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.
Thomas Jefferson
#32. It is error alone that needs the support of government.2 Truth can stand by itself. - THOMAS JEFFERSON, on freedom of religion
Jon Meacham
#33. Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson
#34. I suppose there's a melancholy tone at the back of the American mind, a sense of something lost. And it's the lost world of Thomas Jefferson. It is the lost sense of innocence that we could live with a very minimal state, with a vast sense of space in which to work out freedom.
George Will
#35. [T]he artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted ...
Thomas Jefferson
#36. He [Weishaupt] says, no one ever laid a surer foundation for liberty than our grand master, Jesus of Nazareth.
Thomas Jefferson
#37. There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.
Thomas Jefferson
#38. I am ... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.
Thomas Jefferson
#39. It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.
Thomas Jefferson
#40. Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Thomas Jefferson
#41. The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted by the laws in theory.
Thomas Jefferson
#43. To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement
Thomas Jefferson
#44. In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.
Thomas Jefferson
#45. Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
#46. Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
Benjamin Franklin
#47. I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom & happiness of man.
Thomas Jefferson
#48. Considering the great importance to the public liberty of the freedom of the press, and the difficulty of submitting it to very precise rules, the laws have thought it less mischievous to give greater scope to its freedom than to the restraint of it.
Thomas Jefferson
#49. Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.
Thomas Jefferson
#50. Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
#51. I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.
Thomas Jefferson
#52. What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
Thomas Jefferson
#53. My principles, and those always received by the republicans, do not admit to removing any person from office merely for a difference of political opinion. Malversations in office, and the exerting of official influence to control the freedom of election are good causes for removal.
Thomas Jefferson
#54. I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
Thomas Jefferson
#56. [Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people.
Thomas Jefferson
#57. The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man ... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.
(A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.)
Thomas Jefferson
#58. In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.
Thomas Jefferson
#59. History teaches the young the virtues of freedom. By apprising them of the past it will enable them to judge the future.
Thomas Jefferson
#61. Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and I am sure ... we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.
Thomas Jefferson
#62. I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowlege among the people. no other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
#64. It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.
Thomas Jefferson
#65. Freedom has been privatized - it is how you dress, what your sexual orientation is, choosing your own life. That's fine. But that is not what Thomas Jefferson was talking about.
Eric Foner
#66. I shall rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages; for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery.
Thomas Jefferson
#67. Questioning our government's actions does not violate the principles of liberty, equality, and freedom of speech; it exercises them, and by exercise we grow stronger. I have read enough of Thomas Jefferson to feel sure
Barbara Kingsolver
#68. If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, [then and only then will truth]prevail over fanaticism.
Thomas Jefferson
#71. May it be to the world ... to assume the blessings and security of self-government.
Thomas Jefferson
#72. How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
Thomas Jefferson
