Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

For God's sake, let us freely hear both sides!

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

I like the dreams for the future better than the history of the past.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

No nation is drunken where wine is cheap; and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage. It is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey.

The lamp of war is kindled here, not to be extinguished but by torrents of blood.

The power of making war often prevents it, and in our case would give efficacy to our desire of peace.

I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.

If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.

Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace

...in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them

It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.

It is my disposition to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself.

The President is bound to stop at the limits prescribed by our Constitution and law to the authorities in his hands, [and this] would apply in an occasion of peace as well as war.

While prudence will endeavor to avoid this issue of war, bravery will prepare to meet it.

Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is in their interest to go to war.

The power of making war often prevents it.

War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind.

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

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.

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

We must endeavor to forget our former love for them [the British] and to hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.