Thomas Jefferson
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.Collection: Change
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.Collection: War
By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.Collection: Believe
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Party
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.Collection: Christian
The Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution.Collection: Principles
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.Collection: Light
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.Collection: Religion
Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame.Collection: Atheist
Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.Collection: Wise
Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils of misgovernment.Collection: People
"It astonishes me to find... [that so many] of our countrymen... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty... which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries."Collection: Army
I see no comfort in outliving one's friends, and remaining a mere monument of the times which are past.Collection: Past
One never really knows how much one has been touched by a place until one has left it.Collection: History
To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.Collection: Government Debt
Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.Collection: Law
An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.Collection: Heart
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.Collection: Wise
Stock dealers and banking companies, by the aid of a paper system, are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing presses, which their wealth commands and by any other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.Collection: Country
Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health.Collection: Cheer
[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore . . . never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Country
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.Collection: Country
The only security of all is in a free press.Collection: Freedom Of The Press
Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.Collection: Weed
Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.Collection: Life
I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitudeCollection: Liberty
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.Collection: Religious
The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?Collection: Justice Of God
The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.Collection: Government
Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man.Collection: Party
Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that.Collection: Peace
The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives.Collection: Philosophy
The hole and the patch should be commensurate.Collection: Inspirational
Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.Collection: Presidential
The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles.Collection: House
Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. . . . We might as well require a man to wear the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.Collection: Boys
It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.Collection: Religious
Should [reformers] attempt more than the established habits of the people are ripe for, they may lose all and retard indefinitely the ultimate object of their aim.Collection: People
The issue for patents for new discovers has given a spring to invention beyond my conception.Collection: Spring
The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. Let it be drawn upon largely, and they will then listen to truths which could not excite them through any other organ.Collection: Real
The only true corrective of Constitutional abuses is education.Collection: Abuse
The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties.Collection: Moral
We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self - government.Collection: Men
Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindred and tongues.Collection: Fashion
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.Collection: Law
Never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elemental trait of painting or sculpture.Collection: Black
On the subject of the history of the American Revolution, you ask who shall write it? Who can write it? And who will ever be able to write it? Nobody, except merely its external facts... all its councils, designs and discussions having been conducted by Congress [behind] closed doors - and no members, as far as I know, having even made notes of them. These, which are the life and soul of history, must forever be unknown.Collection: Writing