When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

— Thomas Jefferson

When describing the University of Virginia: 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

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on office a rottenness begins in his conduct.

— Thomas Jefferson

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

— Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

— Thomas Jefferson

Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed.

— Thomas Jefferson

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

— Thomas Jefferson

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable 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 to these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to 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

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through it is best to make up our minds to meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practical. These lessons the evil while fretting and fuming only serve to increase your own torments.

— Thomas Jefferson

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through it is best to meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil while fretting and fuming only increase your own torments.

— Thomas Jefferson