Thomas Jefferson
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
-Thomas Jefferson
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
-Thomas Jefferson
The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.
-Thomas Jefferson
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.
-Thomas Jefferson
It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression, ... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary;an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow,) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed;because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
-Thomas Jefferson
Were we to be directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
-Thomas Jefferson
-Thomas Jefferson
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, the banks and the corporations that will grow around them will deprive the people of all their property, first by inflation and then by deflation, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
-Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people;that they may exercise it by themselves;that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press.
-Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-Thomas Jefferson
When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
-Thomas Jefferson
The tree of liberty, from time to time, must be replenished with the blood of patriots.
-Thomas Jefferson
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.
-Thomas Jefferson
The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.
-Thomas Jefferson
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.
-Thomas Jefferson
The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.
-Thomas Jefferson
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which are so good to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing. 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 the 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, of prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessings of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem.
-Thomas Jefferson
(To Danbury Baptists)
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the 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.
-Thomas Jefferson
(About rebellion in Massachusetts)
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life:if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
-Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
-Thomas Jefferson
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.
-Thomas Jefferson
It is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father.
-Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
-Thomas Jefferson
Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.
-Thomas Jefferson
To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association - the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.
-Thomas Jefferson
I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
-Thomas Jefferson
When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.
-Thomas Jefferson
The god who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time:the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
-Thomas Jefferson
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.
-Thomas Jefferson
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.
-Thomas Jefferson
(To Peter Carr)
1785
A serious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fellows, and better husbands.
-Thomas Jefferson
The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code laid hold of actions only, He (Jesus) pushed his scrutinizes into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountainhead.