Words To Live By From Thomas Jefferson

“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable”,Thomas Jefferson, September 8, 1817.

What an awesome statement. History is so very important. It tells us where we came from and gives us insight to avoid making the same mistakes that were made in the past. Our founding fathers left us with so many tools to ensure our country’s survival. Unfortunately so much of it has been forgotten, neglected or changed all together. In order for us to survive as a free nation, we must pay attention to the foundations that they set forth for us.

Below are a few additional quotes from Thomas Jefferson that we should all ponder. It may take reading each one a couple of times in order for what he is saying to sink in. Compare these statements to the things happening in our country today. Jefferson was such an intelligent man with such great forethought. I only wish that we all would have paid better attention to him.

Thomas Jefferson, A letter to Lafayette, 1823
A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1787
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Thomas Jefferson, A letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823
At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781
But of all the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.

Thomas Jefferson, A letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789
But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.