Frases de Thomas Jefferson

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“No es posible vivir sin libros.”

“Cuando los gobiernos temen a la gente, hay libertad. Cuando la gente teme al gobierno, hay tiranía.”

“No gastes tu dinero antes de ganarlo.”

“La vida carece de valor si no nos produce satisfacciones. Entre éstas, la más valiosa es la sociedad racional, que ilustra la mente, suaviza el temperamento, alegra el ánimo y promueve la salud.”

“No se debe ser demasiado severo con los errores del pueblo, sino tratar de eliminarlos por la educación.”

“Dios nos libre de pasar 20 años sin una rebelión.”

“Una opinión equivocada puede ser tolerada donde la razón es libre de combatirla.”

“El árbol de la libertad debe ser vigorizado de vez en cuando con la sangre de patriotas y tiranos: es su fertilizante natural.”

“Creo que la ley más importante con diferencia de todo nuestro código es la de la difusión del conocimiento entre el pueblo. No se puede idear otro fundamento seguro para conservar la libertad y la felicidad. […] Aboga, mi estimado compañero, por una cruzada contra la ignorancia; establece y mejora la ley de educar a la gente común. Informa a nuestros compatriotas […] de que el impuesto que se pague con el propósito [de educar] no es más que la milésima parte de lo que se tendrá que pagar a los reyes, sacerdotes y nobles que ascenderán al poder si dejamos al pueblo en ignorancia.”

“No son la riqueza ni el esplendor, sino la tranquilidad y la ocupación los que dan la felicidad.”

“Nunca he podido concebir cómo un ser racional podría perseguir la felicidad ejerciendo el poder sobre otros.”

“Cuando alguien asume un cargo público debe considerarse a sí mismo como propiedad pública.”

“El dinero y no la moral es el principio de las naciones fuertes.”

“La democracia no es más que el gobierno de las masas, donde un 51% de la gente puede lanzar por la borda los derechos del otro 49%.”

“Me gustan más los sueños del futuro que la historia del pasado.”

“Quien recibe una idea de mí, recibe instrucción sin disminuir la mía; igual que quien enciende su vela con la mía, recibe luz sin que yo quede a oscuras. […] Las invenciones no pueden, por naturaleza, ser objeto de propiedad.”

“¿A dónde podrá ir el que hasta aquí llegó, si más allá sólo fueron los muertos?”

“Algunas veces se dice que no se le puede confiar al hombre el gobierno de sí mismo. ¿Puede, entonces, confiársele el gobierno de los demás? ¿O hemos encontrado ángeles que asumen la forma de reyes para gobernarlo? Dejemos que la historia conteste esta pregunta.”

“Creen que cualquier trozo de poder confiado en mí, será ejercido en oposición a sus confabulaciones. Y creen bien; porque he jurado sobre el altar de Dios hostilidad eterna contra cada forma de tiranía sobre la mente del hombre. Pero esto es todo lo que tienen que temer de mí: y esto basta, también, en su opinión.”

“Creo, sinceramente, como tú, que los sistemas bancarios son más peligrosos que los ejércitos.”

“Creo que es un gran error considerar cobrar altos impuestos a los vinos como un impuesto al lujo, si lo hiciéramos estaríamos cobrándole impuestos a la salud de nuestros ciudadanos.”

“El arte de la vida es el arte de evitar el dolor.”

“El hombre que no teme a las verdades, nada debe temer a las mentiras.”

“Es más honorable reparar un mal que persistir en él.”

“Estoy a favor de un gobierno que sea vigorosamente frugal y sencillo.”

“Indudablemente nadie se ocupa de quien no se ocupa de nadie.”

“La fusión de los blancos con negros produce una degradación a la que ningún amante de su país, ningún amante de la excelencia en el carácter humano, puede inocentemente consentir.”

“Los mejores momentos de mi vida han sido aquellos que he disfrutado en mi hogar, en el seno de mi familia.”

“Mi estudio de la historia me convence de que la mayoría de los malos resultados de los gobiernos provienen de tener demasiado gobierno.”

“Nadie abandona el cargo de presidente con el mismo prestigio y respeto que le llevó ahí.”

“No hay talento más valioso que el de no usar dos palabras cuando basta una.”

“No puede esperarse que los hombres sean trasladados del despotismo a la libertad en un lecho de plumas.”

“Si hacemos una buena acción simplemente por amor a Dios y el convencimiento de que ello le complace, ¿de donde proviene la moralidad del ateo?... Su virtud, pues, debe haber tenido otro fundamento que el amor de Dios.”

“Siempre he dicho, y siempre diré que la lectura cuidadosa y diligente del Libro Sagrado produce mejores ciudadanos […] La Biblia produce las mejores personas del mundo.”

“Toma las cosas por el lado bueno.”

“Un poco de rebelión de vez en cuando es buena cosa.”

“Verdaderamente tiemblo por mi patria cuando pienso que Dios existe.”

“Yo creo bastante en la suerte. Y he constatado que, cuanto más duro trabajo, más suerte tengo.”

“Creo, sinceramente, con ustedes, que los establecimientos bancarios son más peligrosos que los ejércitos permanentes y que el principio de gastar dinero para ser pagado por la posteridad, bajo el nombre de la financiación, es sin embargo una estafa futura a gran escala. El sistema de la banca nosotros lo hemos reprobado por igual. Yo lo contemplo como un borrón en todas nuestras constituciones, que, si no se protegen, terminará en su destrucción, ya que ya están siendo golpeadas por los jugadores corruptos, y está arrasando en su progreso, la fortuna y la moral de nuestros ciudadanos.”

“No muerdas el cebo del placer hasta no estar seguro de que no oculta un anzuelo.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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."”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Delay is preferable to error.”

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

“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.”

“[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?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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;…”

“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.”

“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”

“I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.”