Quotes by Presidents - Page 8

I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality [in Europe] producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,...[One] means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
Thomas Jefferson
You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!
Abraham Lincoln
While the art of printing is left to us science can never be retrograde what is once acquired of real knowledge can never be lost.
Thomas Jefferson
Thank God she doesn't have to be confirmed by the Senate.(on the birth of his granddaughter)
Herbert Hoover
My greatest concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are concerned with your failure.
Abraham Lincoln
The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.
Thomas Jefferson
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.
Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
Abraham Lincoln
...We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans.
Thomas Jefferson
Everything yields to diligence
Thomas Jefferson
Labor disgraces no man unfortunately you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.
Ulysses S. Grant
...it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it... Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same
Thomas Jefferson
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Thomas Jefferson
If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him.
Abraham Lincoln
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly.
Thomas Jefferson
All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.
Thomas Jefferson
Taste cannot be controlled by law.
Thomas Jefferson
I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from The Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book.
Abraham Lincoln
Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.
Abraham Lincoln
Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
Thomas Jefferson
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg and he is trying to run away it is best to let him run.
Abraham Lincoln
The more sects we have the better. They are all getting somebody in (to the Church) that the others could not: and even with the numerous divisions we are all doing tolerably well.
Abraham Lincoln
When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts.
John Quincy Adams
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion.
Thomas Jefferson
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln
Thomas Jefferson asked himself “In what country on earth would you rather live ” He first answered “Certainly in my own where are all my friends my relations and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life.” But he continued “which would be your second choice ” His answer “France.
Thomas Jefferson
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
Abraham Lincoln
I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.
Abraham Lincoln
When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.
Abraham Lincoln
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.
Thomas Jefferson
If you serve humanity, you serve humanity's God.
Thomas Jefferson
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away it is best to let him run.
Abraham Lincoln
‎We must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Thomas Jefferson
[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired]This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects (Works, Vol. iv, p. 327).
Thomas Jefferson
I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect
Thomas Jefferson
You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.
Abraham Lincoln
I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is but it does not admit of holidays.
Abraham Lincoln
He has a right to criticize who has a heart to help.
Abraham Lincoln
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
Thomas Jefferson
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Vir
Thomas Jefferson
Without the assistance of the Divine Being ... I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail.
Abraham Lincoln
I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.
Abraham Lincoln
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
Have I not destroyed my enemy when I have made him into my friend?
Abraham Lincoln
If the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence, as self-evident truths, are real truths, the existence of slavery, in any form, is a wrong.
John Quincy Adams
Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Thomas Jefferson
A republican government is slow to move yet when once in motion its momentum becomes irresistible.
Thomas Jefferson
I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it
Thomas Jefferson
I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.
Abraham Lincoln
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar
Abraham Lincoln
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Abraham Lincoln
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Jefferson
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
Abraham Lincoln
How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
Thomas Jefferson
If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case.
Abraham Lincoln
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Thomas Jefferson
We trust sir that God is on our side. It is more important to know that we are on God's side.
Abraham Lincoln