Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

I am a great believer in luck
and I find that the harder
I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson

Related topics: Motivational Wisdom Cute Whimsey Success

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

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

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

Do you want to know who you are?
Don't ask. Act!
Action will delineate and define you.
- Thomas Jefferson

Whenever you do a thing,
act as if all the world were watching.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson

Don't talk about what you have done
or what you are going to do.
- Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
- Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism
to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
- Thomas Jefferson

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another
is a thing which has never yet existed,
from the greatest confederacy of nations
down to a town meeting or a vestry.
- Thomas Jefferson

He who knows best knows how little he knows.
- Thomas Jefferson

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
- Thomas Jefferson
(also attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Lord Chesterfield)

Power is not alluring to pure minds.
- Thomas Jefferson

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure
in doing good to another.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

The Creator has not thought proper
to mark those in the forehead
who are of stuff to make good generals.
We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold,
and then let them learn the trade
at the expense of great losses.
- Thomas Jefferson

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
- Thomas Jefferson

How much pain they have cost us,
the evils which have never happened.
- Thomas Jefferson

We never repent of having eaten too little.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

Only aim to do your duty,
and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
- Thomas Jefferson

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another
as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted
with the government of himself.
Can he, then be trusted with the government of others?
Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?
Let history answer this question.
- Thomas Jefferson

Truth is certainly a branch of morality
and a very important one to society.
- Thomas Jefferson

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones;
to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
- Thomas Jefferson

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

Great Quotes

Dare to dream of your great success.
Become intimate with those things
which deeply motivate you
and regularly work toward
the realization of that mission.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

To lead a great life:
Dream, Take Action, Repeat.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Until you'll willing to look foolish,
you'll never have the possibility of being great.
- Cher

Dare to dream of your great success.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
- John D. Rockefeller

Great leadership is not the visit of an unexpected fate
but rather a flame which is kept burning
in spite of the winds of risk and opposition.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Know that you cannot create great new beginnings
until you sincerely celebrate the endings that precede them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is a great big canvas,
and you should throw all the paint you can on it.
- Danny Kaye

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure.
- Abraham Lincoln

The only good luck many great men ever had was
being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.
- Channing Pollock

We come nearest to the great
when we are great in humility.
- Rabindranath Tagore

There is a great future in front of you,
you can leave your past behind.
- Joel Osteen

Small opportunities are often
the beginning of great enterprises.
- Demosthenes

That some achieve great success,
is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
- Abraham Lincoln

No crime is so great as daring to excel.
- Winston Churchill

After climbing a great hill,
one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
- Nelson Mandela

I welcome change as a great adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt
to offer a solution everybody can understand.
- Colin Powell

A great secret of success is to go through life
as a man who never gets used up.
- Albert Schweitzer

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice,
and is never the result of selfishness.
- Napoleon Hill

About leadership: No person can be a great leader
unless he takes genuine joy
in the successes of those under him.
- W. A. Nance

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort,
and without it nothing great was ever achieved.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The great pleasure in life is doing
what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep courage. Whatever you do,
do not feel sorry for yourself.
You will win in a great age of opportunity.
- Richard L. Evans

Silence is a source of great strength.
- Lao Tzu

Confidence is the most important single factor in this game,
and no matter how great your natural talent,
there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.
- Jack Nicklaus

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Great works are performed not by strength,
but by perseverance.
- Samuel Johnson

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.
The good news is that you don't know how great you can be!
How much you can love!
What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
- Anne Frank

He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak.
Strong convictions precede great actions.
- Louisa May Alcott

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation
can be trusted to act humanely
or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
- Bertrand Russell

These are not dark days -
these are great days.
- Winston Churchill

You will become as small as your controlling desire;
as great as your dominant aspiration.
- James Allen

Cheer for endings - whether goals have been met or not -
whether the ending is tidy or ragged.
Without endings, there would be neither the opportunity
nor the incentive to think new thoughts,
and to begin great new projects.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
- Samuel Johnson

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks
in great and honorable courses
with a sure hope and trust in itself.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

A state of expectancy is a great asset;
a state of uncertainty -
one moment thinking "perhaps"
and the next moment thinking "I don't know" -
will never get desired results.
- Ernest Holmes

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence.
Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear.
Perhaps the action you take will be successful;
perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow.
But any action is better than no action at all.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Most people say that is it is the intellect
which makes a great scientist.
They are wrong: it is character.
- Albert Einstein

The willow which bends to the tempest,
often escapes better than the oak which resists it;
and so in great calamities,
it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits
recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner
than those of a loftier character.
- Albert Schweitzer

There are trivial truths and there are great truths.
The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
- Niels Bohr

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