WIST

Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. I may grow rich by 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 & abhor.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
“Notes on Religion” (Oct 1776)
    (Source)

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
“Summary View of the Rights of British America” (1774)

The possession of facts is knowledge; the use of them is wisdom; the choice of them, education. Knowledge is not power but riches, and like them, has its value in spending.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
(Attributed)

In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
(Attributed)

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
(Spurious)

Variations:

• "I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."
• "The harder I work, the more luck I have."

Not found in any of Jefferson's written works. The sentiment long predates him, but this particular quotation (and variants) date to the 1920s. More here.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
(Spurious)
Also attributed to Franklin Roosevelt. For more information, see here.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
(Spurious)
For more information, see here.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow, & when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Autobiography (1821)

The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal.

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Autobiography (1821)
Referring to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Declaration of Independence (1776)

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Declaration of Independence (4 Jul 1776)

[I]t would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism – free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go. … In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Kentucky Resolutions (1798)
    (Source)

In protest of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

One of the amendments to the Constitution … expressly declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” thereby guarding in the same sentence and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press; insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Kentucky Resolutions, draft (1798)

In protest of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on Religion (1776)

Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known & seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men. Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on Religion (Oct 1776)

In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on Religion (Oct 1776)

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia (1782)

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia (1782)

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia, ch. 17 (1782)

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 16 (1782)
Full text.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17 (1782)

Only aim to do your duty and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Rights of British America (1774)

Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
The Virginia Act for Religious Freedom (1786)

Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself. She is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from 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.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786)

That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786)
Full text

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do ….

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786)

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786)

   That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,
   That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;
   That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786)

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Conversation with Baron Humboldt (1807)
In Raynor, Life of Jefferson (1832).

We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Declaration of Independence, “Original Rough Draught” (Jun 1776)
Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (1950).

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1801)

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1801)

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1801)

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1801)

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1801)

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1801)
    (Source)

I have never been so well pleased as when I could shift power from my own, on the shoulders of others; nor have I ever been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy (1811)
Often just the second clause is quoted: "I have never been able to conceive how ..."

The execution of the laws is more important than the making of them.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Abbe Arnold (27 May 1789)

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Abigail Adams (22 Feb 1787)
Full text.

It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Alexander Smyth (17 Jan 1825)

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Archibald Carey (1816)

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Archibald Stuart (23 Dec 1791)
Full text.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Benjamin Rush (21 Apr 1803)

The clergy … believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion ….

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Benjamin Rush (23 Sep. 1800)
On members of the clergy who had "a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U. S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists." Full text. Usually elided to: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.
1. That there are three Gods.
2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, is nothing.
3. That faith is everything, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit the faith.
4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Benjamin Waterhouse (26 Jun 1822)

The animosities of sovereigns are temporary, and may be allayed; but those which seize the whole body of people, and of a people too, dictate their own measures, produce calamities of long duration.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to C. W. F. Dumas (1786)

Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Charles Yancey (6 Jan 1816)

We have solved by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government, and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason, and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Chesterfield Baptists (21 Nov 1808)

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Col. Edward Carrington (16 Jan 1787)

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (16 Jan 1787)

Priests … dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Correa de Serra (11 Apr 1820)

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion, and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to David Harding (20 Apr 1824)

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 Jan 1786)

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Edward Dowse (1803)

I know well that no man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Edward Rutledge (1796)
On the Presidency.

The second office of the government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Elbridge Gerry (13 May 1797)
Referring to the Vice-presidency and the Presidency.

I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Elbridge Gerry (1799)

You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Ezra Stiles Ely (25 Jun 1819)

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp (30 Jul 1816)

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law,” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Francis Gilmer (1816)

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Francis Hopkinson (13 Mar 1789)

Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to François de Marbois (14 Jun 1817)

Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils, and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, & nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to George Wythe (13 Aug 1786)

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to H. D. Tiffin (2 Feb 1807)

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purposes.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Horatio G. Spafford (17 Mar 1814)

In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Horatio Gates Spafford (17 Mar 1814)

Every religion consists of moral precepts, and of dogmas. In the first they all agree.All forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, bear false witness &ca. and these are the articles necessary for the preservation of order, justice, and happiness in society. In their particular dogmas all differ; no two professing the same. These respect vestments, ceremonies, physical opinions, and metaphysical speculations, totally unconnected with morality, and unimportant to the legitimate objects of society. Yet these are the questions on which have hung the bitter schisms of Nazarenes, Socinians, Arians, Athanasians in former times, and now of Trinitarians, Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers &c. Among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims to the dispute whether the first or second toe of Mahomet was longest; and what blood, how many human lives have the words “this do in remembrance of me” cost the Christian world!

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Fishback (Sep 1809)

Every religion consists of moral precepts, and of dogmas. In the first they all agree.All forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, bear false witness &ca. and these are the articles necessary for the preservation of order, justice, and happiness in society. In their particular dogmas all differ; no two professing the same. These respect vestments, ceremonies, physical opinions, and metaphysical speculations, totally unconnected with morality, and unimportant to the legitimate objects of society. Yet these are the questions on which have hung the bitter schisms of Nazarenes, Socinians, Arians, Athanasians in former times, and now of Trinitarians, Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers &c. Among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims to the dispute whether the first or second toe of Mahomet was longest; and what blood, how many human lives have the words “this do in remembrance of me” cost the Christian world!

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Fishback (Sep 1809)

We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus; but we schismatize and lose ourselves in subtleties about his nature, his conception maculate or immaculate, whether he was a god or not a god, whether his votaries are to be initiated by simple aspersion, by immersion, or without water; whether his priests must be robed in white, in black, or not robed at all; whether we are to use our own reason, or the reason of others, in the opinions we form, or as to the evidence we are to believe. It is on questions of this, and still less importance, that such oceans of human blood have been spilt, and whole regions of the earth have been desolated by wars and persecutions, in which human ingenuity has been exhausted in inventing new tortures for their brethren. It is time then to become sensible how insoluble these questions are by minds like ours, how unimportant, and how mischievous; and to consign them to the sleep of death, never to be awakened from it.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Fishback (Sep 1809)

We see good men in all religions, and as many in one as another. It is then a matter of principle with me to avoid disturbing the tranquility of others by the expression of any opinion on the innocent questions on which we schismatize, and think it enough to hold fast to those moral precepts which are of the essence of Christianity, and of all other religions.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Fishback (Sep 1809)

I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take an active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Madison (11 Jun 1823)

Wherever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Madison (28 Oct 1785)

I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Madison (30 Jan 1787)
Referring to Shays' Rebellion.

Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to James Smith (1822)

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 Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Jean Nicholas Demeunier (24 Jan 1786)

The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Jeremiah Moor (1800)

I cannot live without books.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Adams (10 Jun 1815)

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Adams (11 Apr 1823)

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Adams (11 Apr 1823)

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Adams (11 Jan 1817)
Instructions he gave to a biographer. Full text.

The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Adams (24 Jan 1814)

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John B. Colvin (20 Sep 1810)
Full text.

It is incumbent on those only who accept of great charges, to risk themselves on great occasions, when the safety of the nation, or some of its very high interests are at stake. An officer is bound to obey orders; yet he would be a bad one who should do it in cases for which they were not intended, and which involved the most important consequences. The line of discrimination between cases may be difficult; but the good officer is bound to draw it at his own peril, and throw himself on the justice of his country and the rectitude of his motives.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John B. Colvin (20 Sep 1810)
    (Source)

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Norvell (14 Jun 1807)

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Taylor (1 Jun 1798)

No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Tyler Washington (28 Jun 1804)

The firmness with which the people have withstood the late abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false, and to form a correct judgment between them. As little is it necessary to impose on their senses, or dazzle their minds by pomp, splendor, or forms. Instead of this artificial, how much surer is that real respect, which results from the use of their reason, and the habit of bringing everything to the test of common sense.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Tyler Washington (28 Jun 1804)

I hold it, therefore, 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.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Tyler Washington (28 Jun 1804)

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Lafayette (2 Apr 1790)

A fair and honest narrative of the bad is a voucher for the truth of the good.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Matthew Carr (1813)

Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone. I inquire after no man’s, and trouble none with mine.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Miles King (1814)

The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it’s benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Moses Robinson (1801)

It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Mrs. A. S. Marks (1788)

I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another’s creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Mrs. H. Harrison Smith (1816)

I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith (1816)

My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith (6 Aug 1816)

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Nathaniel Macon (12 Jan 1819)

I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If [this] book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God’s sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Nicholas G. Dufief (19 Apr 1814)
Dufief was a Philadelphia bookseller who had been prosecuted for selling the book Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation Primitive by M. de Becourt. Jefferson had purchased a copy as well.

But is an enemy so execrable that tho in captivity his wishes and comforts are to be disregarded and even crossed? I think not. It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Patrick Henry (27 Mar 1779)

Shake off all the fears of 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 God; because, if there be one, He must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (10 Aug 1787)

In fine, I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject any thing because any other person, or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but the uprightness of the decisions.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (10 Aug 1787)
On urging him to read and determine for himself the divinity or non-divinity of Christ. Full text.

If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot see when you take one step what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties tenfold; and those who pursue these methods get themselves so involved at length that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (1785)

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (19 Aug 1785)
Full text.

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were the whole world looking at you, and act accordingly.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (19 Aug 1785)

Timid men … prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Philip Mazzei (24 Apr 1796)
Full text.

I am a sect by myself, as far as I know.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Rev. Ezra Stiles (25 Jun 1819)

I consider the Government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution of the United States from meddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises ….  But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and praying. That is, I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises, which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? … Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercise of his constituents.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Rev. Samuel Miller (23 Jan 1808)
On refusing to issue a Thanksgiving proclamation during his presidency.

I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Richard Price (8 Jan 1789)
Price had written to Jefferson on 26 Oct 1788  about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?"

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker, in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Richard Rush (31 May 1813)
Full text.

A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Robert Skipwith (3 Aug 1771)
    (Source)

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Roger C. Weightman (24 Jun 1826)
The last letter he wrote.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Samuel Kercheval (12 Jul 1816)
Inscribed (elided) on SE of Jefferson Memorial.

But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Samuel Kercheval (1810)

Offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Tench Coxe (21 May 1799)

Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to the Danbury Baptists (1 Jan 1802)
Full text.

Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish within yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and on opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph (24 Nov 1808)
    (Source)

I may have erred at times — no doubt I have erred; this is the law of human nature. For honest errors, however, indulgence may be hoped.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Thomas Lomax (1801)

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome direction, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to William C. Jarvis (28 Sep 1820)

After the satisfaction of doing what is right, the greatest is that of having what we do approved by those whose opinions deserve esteem.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Phillips (1779)

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 Nov 1787)

What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 Nov 1787)

What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 Nov 1787)
    (Source)

Among the most inestimable of our blessings, also, is that … of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter, Reply to John Thomas et al. (1807)

The care of every man’s soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or estate …? Will the magistrate make a law that he shall not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Notes labeled “Scraps Early in the Revolution” (Oct 1776?)

The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes (1819)