Thomas Jefferson
The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and in-grafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.Collection: Religious
The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.Collection: Taken
I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.Collection: Country
I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.Collection: Men
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural.Collection: Garden
Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.Collection: Government
The system of banking have[for]ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens.Collection: Progress
Health is worth more than learning.Collection: Inspirational
I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast . . . would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it.Collection: Flames
The same political parties which now agitiate the US have existed through all time. And in fact the terms of whig and tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution and mind of different individuals.Collection: Party
It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.Collection: Done
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.Collection: Religious
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.Collection: Government
I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.Collection: Hope
Health is value greater than studying.Collection: Study
If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.Collection: Courage
Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving their goal; nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.Collection: Motivational
I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of itCollection: Perseverance
When the people are afraid of the government, that’s tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that’s liberty.Collection: Liberty
Whenever there are 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 labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state.Collection: Country
If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman’s.Collection: Country