Frasi di Thomas Jefferson (474 frasi, pagina 9)

Thomas Jefferson: 474 frasi 27 Mi piace

Thomas Jefferson frasi celebri

“Quando il popolo ha paura del governo, c'è tirannia. Quando il governo ha paura del popolo, c'è libertà.”

Thomas Jefferson

“Consideriamo come verità sacre e innegabili: che tutti gli uomini sono creati uguali e indipendenti, che da questa uguaglianza nella creazione gli uomini derivano diritti inerenti e inalienabili, tra i quali la conservazione della propria vita, la libertà e il diritto alla felicità.”

Thomas Jefferson

Origine: Citato in Dizionario mondiale di Storia, Rizzoli Larousse, Milano, 2003, p. 649. ISBN 88-525-0077-4

“Non posso vivere senza libri.”

Thomas Jefferson

citato in Michael Gelb, Il Genio che c'è in te

“Il prezzo della libertà è un'eterna vigilanza.”

Thomas Jefferson

“Credo sinceramente insieme a te che le establishment bancarie siano più pericolose di armate schierate per la battaglia; e che il principio di spendere denaro che dovrà essere ripagato dalla posteriorità, col nome di finanziamento, non sia altro che truffare il futuro su larga scala.”

Thomas Jefferson

da una lettera a John Taylor http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-9116907, 28 maggio 1816

“Ogni volta che fai una cosa, agisci come se l'intero mondo ti stia guardando.”

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Frasi e Citazioni

“Dio che ci ha donato la vita allo stesso modo ci ha donato la libertà. La mano violenta può distruggerle ma non separarle.”

Thomas Jefferson

Origine: Citato in Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774); The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (19 Vols., 1905) edito da Andrew A. Lipscomb e Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 1, p. 211.

Su Dio , Sulla vita , La libertà , Modo

“Attribuire ad ognuno la direzione di ciò che il suo occhio riesce a sorvegliare.”

Thomas Jefferson

dalla lettera a Joseph C. Cabell, 2 febbraio 1816; in Antologia degli scritti politici, p. 109
Origine: Questo precetto è considerato l'anticipazione del principio di sussidiarietà adottato dall'Unione Europea a partire dal Trattato di Maastricht del 1992.

“Ho giurato sull'altare di Dio eterna guerra contro qualsiasi forma di tirannia sulla mente dell'uomo.”

Thomas Jefferson

Origine: Citato in Michael J. Gelb, Il genio che c'è in te.

Sulla guerra

“L'albero della libertà deve essere rinvigorito di tanto in tanto con il sangue dei patrioti e dei tiranni. Esso ne rappresenta il concime naturale.”

Thomas Jefferson

da una lettera a William Stevens Smith, 13 novembre 1787; citato in Adriano Sofri, Tiranno: quando si mette a morte il despota, la Repubblica, 7 novembre 2006, p. 53

Sulla morte , Albero , La libertà

“Nessuno può essere costretto a partecipare o a contribuire pecuniariamente a qualsivoglia culto, edificio o ministero religioso.”

Thomas Jefferson

citato in un articolo di Curzio Maltese, la Repubblica, 25 giugno 2007

Sull'arte

“Una linea geografica coincidente con un principio morale e politico determinato, una volta concepita e conservata a prezzo di passioni esacerbate, non potrà mai venir cancellata. Qualsiasi nuova irritazione non farebbe altro che approfondirla.”

Thomas Jefferson

Origine: Citato in Maurice Denuzière, Louisiana, traduzione di Augusto Donaudy, Rizzoli, Milano, 1980.

Passione

“Lo spirito di resistenza al governo è così prezioso in certe occasioni che mi auguro sia sempre mantenuto vivo. Spesso lo si eserciterà in modo sbagliato, tuttavia meglio esercitato così che non esercitato affatto.”

Thomas Jefferson

da una lettera ad Abigail Adams, 1787

Modo

“È solo l'errore che ha bisogno del sostegno del governo. La verità può esistere da sola. (da Notes on the State of Virginia; citato nella Dichiarazione d'indipendenza del cyberspazio di John Perry Barlow”

Thomas Jefferson

Sulla verità , Errore

“Chi riceve un'idea da me, ricava conoscenza senza diminuire la mia; come chi accende la sua candela con la mia riceve luce senza lasciarmi al buio.”

Thomas Jefferson

dalla lettera a Isaac Mc Pherson del 13 agosto 1813

Conoscenza , Idea , Luce

“Potrei più facilmente credere che due professori yankee mentano che delle pietre possano cadere dal cielo.”

Thomas Jefferson

“Se c’è tra noi chi voglia dissolvere questa Unione o cambiarne la forma repubblicana, lo si lasci indisturbato, a testimonianza della sicurezza con la quale si possono tollerare opinioni errate là dove la ragione è libera di combatterle.”

Thomas Jefferson

“Osa mettere in discussione anche l'esistenza di un Dio; perché se ce n'è uno, egli approverà maggiormente l'omaggio della ragione, piuttosto che quello della cieca paura. (da una lettera al figlioccio Peter Carr)”

Thomas Jefferson

Sulla paura , Su Dio

Thomas Jefferson: Frasi in inglese

“In order to be able to meet a general combination of the banks against us in a critical emergency, could we not make a beginning towards an independent use of our own money, towards holding our own bank in all the deposits where it is received, and letting the treasurer give his draft or note for payment at any particular place, which, in a well-conducted government, ought to have as much credit as any private draft or bank note or bill, and would give us the same facilities which we derive from the banks?”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1803. http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/gallatin.html ME 10:439
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“Our people… will give you all the necessaries of war they produce, if, instead of the bankrupt trash they now are obliged to receive for want of any other, you will give them a paper promise funded on a specific pledge, and of a size for common circulation.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to James Monroe, 1815. ME 14:228
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Samuel Kercheval (1816)
1810s
Variante: Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.

“Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Richard Rush (1813)
1810s

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Autobiography (1821), reprinted in Basic Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Philip S. Foner, New York: Wiley Book Company (1944} p. 464
1820s

“Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing, in the march of time. It will come.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

1810s, Letter to Edward Coles (1814)

“Let what will be said or done, preserve your sang-froid immovably, and to every obstacle, oppose patience, perseverance, and soothing language.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to William Short (18 March 1792)
1790s

“Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people, the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

This is a misquotation of a prayer from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (ministry should be industry and arrogance should be arrogancy). This was a revision from an earlier edition. The original form, written by George Lyman Locke, appeared in the 1885 edition. In 1994 William J. Federer attributed it to Jefferson in America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, pp. 327-8. See the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/national-prayer-peace.
Misattributed

“For if experience has ever taught a truth, it is that a plurality in the supreme Executive will forever split into discordant factions, distract the nation, annihilate its energies, and force the nation to rally under a single head, generally an usurper. We have, I think, fallen on the happiest of all modes of constituting the Executive, that of easing and aiding our President, by permitting him to choose Secretaries of State, of Finance, of War, and of the Navy, with whom he may advise, either separately or all together, and remedy their divisions by adopting or controlling their opinions at his discretion; this saves the nation from the evils of a divided will, and secures to it a steady march in the systematic course which the President may have adopted for that of his administration.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)

“It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Arthur Campbell (1797)
1790s

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Not found in any of Thomas Jefferson's writings. This may be a conflation of Jefferson's "chains of the Constitution" comment with Ayn Rand's statement in her essay, Man's Rights: "There are two potential violators of man’s rights: the criminals and the government. The great achievement of the United States was to draw a distinction between these two — by forbidding to the second the legalized version of the activities of the first." http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/two-enemies-people-are-criminals-and-governmentquotation
Misattributed

“The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

24 June 1813
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

“I see too many proofs of the imperfection of human reason, to entertain wonder or intolerance at any difference of opinion on any subject; and acquiesce in that difference as easily as on a difference of feature or form; experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can, when we cannot do all we would wish.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John Randolph (1 December 1803), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 109 http://files.libertyfund.org/files/806/0054-10_Bk.pdf, pp. 54
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)

“One of our fan-coloring biographers, who paints small men as very great, inquired of me lately with real affection too, whether he might consider as authentic, the change of my religion much spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed that they knew what had been my religion before, taking for it the word of their priests, whom I certainly never made the confidants of my creed. My answer was "say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one."”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John Adams (11 January 1817), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, pp. 48–49
1810s

“After long and fruitless endeavors to effect the purposes of their mission and to obtain arrangements within the limits of their instructions, they concluded to sign such as could be obtained and to send them for consideration, candidly declaring to the other negotiators at the same time that they were acting against their instructions, and that their Government, therefore, could not be pledged for ratification….
Whether a regular army is to be raised, and to what extent, must depend on the information so shortly expected. In the mean time I have called on the States for quotas of militia, to be in readiness for present defense, and have, moreover, encouraged the acceptance of volunteers; and I am happy to inform you that these have offered themselves with great alacrity in every part of the Union. They are ordered to be organized and ready at a moment's warning to proceed on any service to which they may be called, and every preparation within the Executive powers has been made to insure us the benefit of early exertions.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson's Seventh State of the Union Address (27 October 1807). Description of the negotiations and rejected treaty of James Monroe and William Pinkney with Britain over maritime rights, and subsequent negotiations over the British sinking of the American ship Chesapeake, leading to an American embargo (The Embargo Act).
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

“A child raised every 2. years is of more profit then the crop of the best laboring man. in this, as in all other cases, providence has made our duties and our interests coincide perfectly…. [W]ith respect therefore to our women & their children I must pray you to inculcate upon the overseers that it is not their labor, but their increase which is the first consideration with us.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

In letter to plantation manager, as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012)
Attributed

“England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813)
1810s

“Delay is preferable to error.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to George Washington (16 May 1792)
1790s

“I have ever deemed it more honorable and profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

As quoted in The Life and Writings of Thomas Jefferson : Including All of His Important Utterances on Public Questions (1900) by Samuel E. Forman, p. 429
Posthumous publications

“Put down the banks, and if this country could not be carried through the longest war against her most powerful enemy without ever knowing the want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitorous classes of her citizens, without bearing hard on the resources of the people, or loading the public with an indefinite burden of debt, I know nothing of my countrymen. Not by any novel project, not by any charlatanerie, but by ordinary and well-experienced means; by the total prohibition of all private paper at all times, by reasonable taxes in war aided by the necessary emissions of public paper of circulating size, this bottomed on special taxes, redeemable annually as this special tax comes in, and finally within a moderate period.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1815. http://www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/gallatin1.html ME 14:356
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“[The] Bank of the United States… is one of the most deadly hostility existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution… An institution like this, penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx, may, in a critical moment, upset the government. I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries. What an obstruction could not this bank of the United States, with all its branch banks, be in time of war! It might dictate to us the peace we should accept, or withdraw its aids. Ought we then to give further growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1803. ME 10:437
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“It is said that our paper is as good as silver, because we may have silver for it at the bank where it issues. This is not true. One, two, or three persons might have it; but a general application would soon exhaust their vaults, and leave a ruinous proportion of their paper in its intrinsic worthless form.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

ME 13:426
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

“Children till 10. years old to serve as nurses. from 10. to 16. the boys make nails, the girls spin. at 16. go into the ground or learn trades.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson's Farm Book as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012)
Attributed

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT. (1 January 1802) This statement is the origin of the often used phrase "separation of Church and State".
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)

“The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticism of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them; and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to John Adams (5 July 1814). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 11 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-11_Bk.pdf, pp. 397–398
1810s

“Certainly no nation ever before abandoned to the avarice and jugglings of private individuals to regulate according to their own interests, the quantum of circulating medium for the nation — to inflate, by deluges of paper, the nominal prices of property, and then to buy up that property at 1s. in the pound, having first withdrawn the floating medium which might endanger a competition in purchase. Yet this is what has been done, and will be done, unless stayed by the protecting hand of the legislature. The evil has been produced by the error of their sanction of this ruinous machinery of banks; and justice, wisdom, duty, all require that they should interpose and arrest it before the schemes of plunder and spoliation desolate the country.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to William C. Rives (1819) ME 15:232
Posthumous publications, On financial matters

“Whereas, our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans, that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated;…”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

1810s, Letter to Albert Gallatin (16 June 1817)

“I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Attributed to Jefferson by Daniel Webster in a letter of 15 June 1852 addressed to Professor Pease, recalling a Sunday spent with Jefferson more than a quarter of a century before.
Attributed

“The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet, and they are too well versed in English law to forget the maxim, boni judicis est ampliare juris-dictionem. We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then, with the editor of our book, in his address to the public, I will say, that "against this every man should raise his voice," and more, should uplift his arm. Who wrote this admirable address? Sound, luminous, strong, not a word too much, nor one which can be changed but for the worse. That pen should go on, lay bare these wounds of our constitution, expose the decisions seriatim, and arouse, as it is able, the attention of the nation to these bold speculators on its patience. Having found, from experience, that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scare-crow, they consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from responsibility to public opinion, the only remaining hold on them, under a practice first introduced into England by Lord Mansfield. An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning”

Help us translate this quote

Thomas Jefferson

Letter http://books.google.com/books?vid=0Fz_zz_wSWAiVg9LI1&id=vvVVhCadyK4C&pg=PA192&vq=%22impeachment+is+an+impracticable+thing%22&dq=%22jeffersons+works%22 to Thomas Ritchie (25 December 1820)
1820s