Thomas jefferson quotes

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.

The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster cruel vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging three headed beast like god one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes fools and hypocrites.

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.

The last hope of human liberty in this world rests on us.

The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.

I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man.

No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism.

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

The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.

Dependence leads to subservience.

I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.

The Bible makes the best people in the world.

The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But times and truth dissipated the delusion, and opened their eyes.

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

Taste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.

The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.

Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.

Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and moneyed incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling...I hope we shall...crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to trial and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christians.

Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

The government you elect is the government you deserve.

Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to the truth.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms

The federal government is our servant, not our master.

It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance

The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.

Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality

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; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.

Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.

No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence.

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.

On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

It is every Americans' right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself.

You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless... From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to affect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust.

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

[An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.

A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.

No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.

I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our 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.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

I deplore with you the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them. ... This has in a great degree been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state

The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens.

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Who will govern the governors? There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government.

The worst day in a man's life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.

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.

The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

Equal rights for all, special privileges for none

A true patriot will defend his country from its government.

Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. 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.

Trade liberty for safety or money and you'll end up with neither. Liberty, like a grain of salt, easily dissolves. The power of questioning - not simply believing - has no friends. Yet liberty depends on it.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers.

I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.