If you’re looking for the best collection of Thomas Jefferson quotes on success then look no further.
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809.
Jefferson is remembered as one of the greatest American Presidents in history. His face is depicted on Mount Rushmore, alongside those of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
If you look around you’ll find hundreds of Thomas Jefferson quotes on the declaration of independence, government, education, liberty, war, revolution, the press, and the pursuit of happiness. After all, he was a man of great experience and wisdom.
Below you’ll find the best collection of quotes by Thomas Jefferson relating to success and wise words of advice which will inspire you to live a better life.
Inspirational Thomas Jefferson Quotes
1. “Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.” – Thomas Jefferson
2. “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
3. “One man with courage is a majority.” – Thomas Jefferson
4. “Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.” – Thomas Jefferson
5. “I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.” – Thomas Jefferson
6. “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
7. “I cannot live without books.” – Thomas Jefferson
8. “Never spend your money before you have earned it.” – Thomas Jefferson
9. “Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.” – Thomas Jefferson
10. “Nobody is better than you and remember, you are better than nobody.” – Thomas Jefferson
11. “If you want something you’ve never had you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” – Thomas Jefferson
12. “The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.” – Thomas Jefferson
13. “It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.” – Thomas Jefferson
14. “When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.” – Thomas Jefferson
15. “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson
16. “Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.” – Thomas Jefferson
17. “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” – Thomas Jefferson
18. “I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.” – Thomas Jefferson
19. “Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.” – Thomas Jefferson
20. “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” – Thomas Jefferson
21. “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
22. “Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.” – Thomas Jefferson
23. “Delay is preferable to error.” – Thomas Jefferson
24. “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
25. “I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.” – Thomas Jefferson
26. “We never repent of having eaten too little.” – Thomas Jefferson
27. “Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.” – Thomas Jefferson
28. “A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.” – Thomas Jefferson
29. “Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” – Thomas Jefferson
30. “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
31. “Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.” – Thomas Jefferson
32. “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
33. “The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.” – Thomas Jefferson
34. “Be polite to all, but intimate with few.” – Thomas Jefferson
35. “It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.” – Thomas Jefferson
36. “I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.” – Thomas Jefferson
37. “I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.” – Thomas Jefferson
38. “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson
39. “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” – Thomas Jefferson
40. “Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.” – Thomas Jefferson
41. “How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.” – Thomas Jefferson
42. “My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.” – Thomas Jefferson
43. “Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.” – Thomas Jefferson
44. “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” – Thomas Jefferson
45. “It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.” – Thomas Jefferson
46. “The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.” – Thomas Jefferson
47. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” – Thomas Jefferson
48. “Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.” – Thomas Jefferson
49. “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.” – Thomas Jefferson
50. “It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson
51. “Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.” – Thomas Jefferson
52. “Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.” – Thomas Jefferson
53. “He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” – Thomas Jefferson
54. “I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.” – Thomas Jefferson
55. “Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” – Thomas Jefferson
56. “Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.” – Thomas Jefferson
57. “I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.” – Thomas Jefferson
58. “He who knows best knows how little he knows.” – Thomas Jefferson
59. “Power is not alluring to pure minds.” – Thomas Jefferson
60. “One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.” – Thomas Jefferson
61. “To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.” – Thomas Jefferson
62. “Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.” – Thomas Jefferson
63. “It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.” – Thomas Jefferson
64. “One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.” – Thomas Jefferson
65. “Take care of your cents: dollars will take care of themselves.” – Thomas Jefferson
66. “The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.” – Thomas Jefferson
67. “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.” – Thomas Jefferson
68. “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” – Thomas Jefferson
69. “Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.” – Thomas Jefferson
70. “Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.” – Thomas Jefferson
71. “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” – Thomas Jefferson
72. “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” – Thomas Jefferson
73. “I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.” – Thomas Jefferson
74. “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” – Thomas Jefferson
75. “Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.” – Thomas Jefferson
76. “There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.” – Thomas Jefferson
77. “We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.” – Thomas Jefferson
78. “Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.” – Thomas Jefferson
79. “The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.” – Thomas Jefferson
80. “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
81. “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
82. “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” – Thomas Jefferson
83. “Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.” – Thomas Jefferson
84. “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” – Thomas Jefferson
85. “An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.” – Thomas Jefferson
86. “Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.” – Thomas Jefferson
87. “The dead should not rule the living.” – Thomas Jefferson
88. “Everything yields to diligence.” – Thomas Jefferson
89. “A great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.” – Thomas Jefferson
90. “The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.” – Thomas Jefferson
91.”Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.” – Thomas Jefferson
92. “May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.” – Thomas Jefferson
93. “If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.” – Thomas Jefferson
94. “Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.” – Thomas Jefferson
95. “No people who are ignorant can be truly free.” – Thomas Jefferson
96. “Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.” – Thomas Jefferson
97. “Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.” – Thomas Jefferson
98. “Of all machines, the human heart is the most complicated and inexplicable.” – Thomas Jefferson
99. “The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk. But divert your attention by the objects surrounding you.” – Thomas Jefferson
100. “Follow truth wherever it may lead you.” – Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson Quotes: The Pursuit Of Happiness
Perhaps Thomas Jefferson’s most famous quote is that which was spoken by Will Smith in the inspirational film The Pursuit Of Happyness (2006).
101. “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.” – Thomas Jefferson
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