Thomas Jefferson citáty

strana 8

„Věřím v štěstí, a přijde mi, že čím tvrději pracuji, tím víc toho mám.“

„Chcete vědět, kdo jste? Neptej se. Jednejte! Jednání vás vymezí a definuje.“

„Nemůžu žít bez knih.“

„Nejcennější ze všech talentů je to, že nikdy neřeknete dvě slova, když postačí i jedno.“

„Nemluvte o tom, co jste udělali nebo co se chystáte udělat.“

„Vše, co potřebuje tyranie, aby získala pevnou půdu pod nohama, je, když lidé dobré vůle zůstanou zticha.“

„Historie tím, že lidi zpravuje o minulosti, umožňuje jim soudit přítomnost.“

„Všichni lidé jsou stvořeni jako sobě rovní a jejich Stvořitel je opatřil určitými nezcizitelnými právy, mezi něž patří život, svoboda a usilování o štěstí. K zajištění těchto práv se ustavují vlády, jejichž spravedlivá moc vyplývá ze souhlasu těch, kterým vládnou. Kdykoli se nějaká forma vlády zprotiví těmto cílům, má lid právo ji změnit nebo zrušit…“

„Když se lidé bojí své vlády, pak existuje tyranie.“

„Pokládáme za samozřejmé pravdy, že všichni lidé jsou stvořeni sobě rovni, že jsou obdařeni svým Stvořitelem určitými nezcizitelnými právy, že mezi tato práva náleží život, svoboda a sledování osobního štěstí; že k zajištění těchto práv se ustanovují mezi lidmi vlády, odvozující svojí oprávněnou moc ze souhlasu těch, jimž vládnou; že kdykoliv počne být některá vláda těmto cílům na překážku, má lid právo jí změnit nebo zrušit a ustanovit vládu novou, která by byla založena na takových zásadách a měla svoji pravomoc upravenou takovým způsobem, jak uzná lid za nejvhodnější pro zajištění své bezpečnosti a svého štěstí.“

„Nic není v knize osudu psáno s větší jistotou než to, že tito lidé (černoši) mají být svobodní. Ani není o nic méně jisté, než že tyto dvě rasy, stejně svobodné, nemohou žít pod jednou vládou. Jejich povahy, zvyky a názory mezi nimi vytvořily nesmazatelné rozdíly“

„Bůh, který nám dal život, nám zároveň dal svobodu; síla je může zničit, ale ne rozdělit.“

„Člověk, který se nikdy nepodívá do novin, je lépe informován než ten, kdo je čte, protože ten, kdo nic neví, je pravdě blíže než ten, jehož mysl je naplněna lží a omyly.“

„Strom svobody musí být čas od času osvěžen krví vlastenců a tyranů.“

„Kousíček pravdivé historie je tak vzácná věc, že si jí musíme velice vážit.“

„Chůze je nejlepší možné cvičení.“

„Člověk, který nikdy nečte noviny, je informován lépe než ten, který je čte.“

„Dokud nepřestaneme ubližovat ostatním živým tvorům, budeme pořád barbary.“

„Nikdy jsem nebyl svědkem, že by se jeden nebo oba diskutující vzájemně přesvědčili na základě hádky.“

„Pokud příroda učinila alespoň jednu věc méně náchylnou k výlučnému vlastnictví než ty ostatní, pak je to čin schopnosti myslet zvaný myšlenka, kterou může jedinec vlastnit výlučně, dokud si ji nechává pro sebe; ale jakmile je zveřejněna, nutí se do vlastnictví všech, a její příjemce o ni nemůže přijít. Její zvláštní vlastností je též, že nikdo jí nemá méně proto, že ji celou mají i ostatní. Kdo ode mne obdrží myšlenku, obdrží návod, aniž bych já o něj přišel; jako kdo si zapálí svíčku o moji, obdrží světlo, aniž by mě uvrhl do tmy. Aby se myšlenky volně šířily od jednoho člověka ke druhému napříč zeměkoulí, pro morální a vzájemné poučení člověka, a vylepšení jeho podmínek, se zdá být zvláštně a laskavě navrženo přírodou, když myšlenky učinila, stejně jako oheň, rozšiřitelné všude po prostoru, aniž by snížila jejich hustotu v nějakém místě, a, jako vzduch, ve kterém dýcháme, hýbeme se a fyzicky existujeme, neschopné zajetí či výlučného přivlastnění. Vynálezy tedy nemohou být, v povaze věci, být předmětem vlastnictví.“

„V otázce stylu, plav s proudem; v otázce zásad, stůj jako skála.“

„Neexistuje pravda, které bych se bál nebo kterou bych si přál ukrýt před světem.“

„Až budeme natlačeni jeden na druhého ve velkoměstech jako v Evropě, budeme také zkažení jako v Evropě.“

„Zjišťuji, že čím tvrdší práci odvádím, tím mám víc štěstí.“

„Čestnost je první kapitolou v Knize moudrosti.“

„Zákony, které zakazují nošení zbraní, jsou takové povahy, že odzbrojí pouze ty, kteří nejsou odhodláni ani nakloněni páchání zločinů… Takové zákony činí věci horšími pro napadeného a snadnějšími pro útočníka, slouží spíše ku podpoře než k zabránění vraždám, neboť neozbrojený člověk může být napaden s větší sebedůvěrou než ozbrojený.“

„Přátelství je jen jiný název pro spojenectví se šílenstvím a neštěstím druhých. Náš vlastní podíl na utrpení je dostatečný: proč se tedy jako dobrovolníci zapojovat do utrpení druhého?“

„Křesťanství není, ani nebylo část zvykového práva.“

„Muž, který nečte vůbec nic, je vzdělanější než muž, který nečte nic jiného než noviny.“

„V Americe nemáme vládu většiny. Máme vládu většiny, která se na té vládě podílí.“

„Raději bych byl vystaven nepříjemnostem, které jsou spojeny s příliš velkou svobodou, než těm, které jsou spojeny s příliš malou mírou svobody.“

„Rozdílné názory v politice, náboženství nebo filozofii nikdy nepovažuji za důvod, proč se od přítele distancovat.“

„Rozum a svobodné zkoumání jsou jedinými účinnými prostředky proti omylům.“

„Doufám, že naše moudrost poroste spolu s naší mocí a naučí nás, že čím méně budeme naši moc používat, tím větší bude.“

“Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. — We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favour towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.”

“If by religion, we are understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, "something not fit to be named, even indeed, a hell."”

“An hereditary chief, strictly limited, the right of war vested in the legislative body, a rigid economy of the public contributions, and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses, will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive. But the only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.”

“The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us….”

“I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind as to send me on the Literature of Negroes. Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their reestablishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family.”

“The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent.”

“From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation. The feelings of human nature revolt against the supposition of a state so situated as that it may not in any emergency provide against dangers which perhaps threaten immediate ruin. While those bodies are in existence to whom the people have delegated the powers of legislation, they alone possess and may exercise those powers; but when they are dissolved by the lopping off one or more of their branches, the power reverts to the people, who may exercise it to unlimited extent, either assembling together in person, sending deputies, or in any other way they may think proper.”

“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”

“Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. The latter fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent.”

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.”

“I am convinced our own happiness requires that we should continue to mix with the world, and to keep pace with it as it goes; and that every person who retires from free communication with it is severely punished afterwards by the state of mind into which he gets, and which can only be prevented by feeding our sociable principles. I can speak from experience on this subject. From 1793 to 1797 I remained closely at home, saw none but those who came there, and at length became very sensible of the ill effect it had on my own mind, and of its direct and irresistible tendency to render me unfit for society and uneasy when necessarily engaged in it. I felt enough of the effect of withdrawing from the world then to see that it led to an anti-social and misanthropic state of mind, which severely punishes him who gives in to it; and it will be a lesson I never shall forget as to myself.”

“But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”

“One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”

“Agreeably to the request of the House of Representatives, communicated in their resolution of the 16th instant, I proceed to state under the reserve therein expressed, information received touching an illegal combination of private individuals against the peace and safety of the Union, and a military expedition planned by them against the territories of a power in amity with the United States, with the measures I have pursued for suppressing the same….
But by information received yesterday I learn that on the 22d of December, Mr. Burr descended the Cumberland with two boats merely of accommodation, carrying with him from that State no quota toward his unlawful enterprise. Whether after the arrival of the proclamation, of the orders, or of our agent, any exertion which could be made by that State, or the orders of the governor of Kentucky for calling out the militia at the mouth of Cumberland, would be in time to arrest these boats, and those from the falls of the Ohio, is still doubtful.”

“The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.”

“The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter … But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.”

“Instead of funding issues of paper on the hypothecation of specific redeeming taxes (the only method of anticipating, in a time of war, the resources of times of peace, tested by the experience of nations), we are trusting to tricks of jugglers on the cards, to the illusions of banking schemes for the resources of the war, and for the cure of colic to inflations of more wind.”

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

“Architecture worth great attention. As we double our numbers every 20 years we must double our houses. Besides we build of such perishable materials that one half of our houses must be rebuilt in every space of 20 years. So that in that term, houses are to be built for three fourths of our inhabitants. It is then among the most important arts: and it is desireable to introduce taste into an art which shews so much.”

“Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.”

“The bank mania is one of the most threatening of these imitations. It is raising up a moneyed aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance, and although forced at length to yield a little on this first essay of their strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding. These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable has become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their pelf of the bad, and thus those whom the Constitution had placed as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties.”

“And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and libraries of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.”

“The States should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount for paper.”

“I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new Constitution by nine States. It is a good canvas, on which some strokes only want retouching. What these are, I think are sufficiently manifested by the general voice from north to south, which calls for a bill of rights.”

“It has always been denied by the republican party in this country, that the Constitution had given the power of incorporation to Congress. On the establishment of the Bank of the United States, this was the great ground on which that establishment was combated; and the party prevailing supported it only on the argument of its being an incident to the power given them for raising money.”

“Paper is poverty,… it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”

“I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away, and my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it.”

“Necessity, as well as patriotism and confidence, will make us all eager to receive treasury notes, if founded on specific taxes. Congress may borrow of the public, and without interest, all the money they may want, to the amount of a competent circulation, by merely issuing their own promissory notes, of proper denominations for the larger purposes of circulation, but not for the small. Leave that door open for the entrance of metallic money.”

“That we are overdone with banking institutions which have banished the precious metals and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium, that these have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness, that the wars of the world have swollen our commerce beyond the wholesome limits of exchanging our own productions for our own wants, and that, for the emolument of a small proportion of our society who prefer these demoralizing pursuits to labors useful to the whole, the peace of the whole is endangered and all our present difficulties produced, are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.”