Thomas Jefferson
It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.
When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.Collection: Government
When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.Collection: Law
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.Collection: Religious
There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.Collection: Safety
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.Collection: Thinking
A true patriot will defend his country from its government.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Evil
When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.Collection: Achieve
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Fall
To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.Collection: Effort
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.Collection: Courage
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.Collection: Pursuit Of Happiness
The federal government is our servant, not our master.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Army
Free men do not ask permission to bear armsCollection: Men
No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence.Collection: Money
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.Collection: Freedom
The government you elect is the government you deserve.Collection: Government
The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.Collection: Civil Rights
I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.Collection: Freedom
The trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.Collection: Country
I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demigods.Collection: Wise
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.Collection: Errors
A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.Collection: Country
I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.Collection: Change
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.Collection: Men
Experience has proved to us that a dollar of silver disappears for every dollar of paper emitted.Collection: Dollars
No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations.Collection: Kings
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.Collection: Freedom
Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.Collection: War
I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.Collection: Book
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.Collection: Humility
It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.Collection: Government