Top 1819 Quotes & Sayings by Thomas Jefferson - Page 4

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms

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.

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

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.

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

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

I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

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

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.

Dependence leads to subservience.

A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.

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

The federal government is our servant, not our master.

Equal rights for all, special privileges for none

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality

The government you elect is the government you deserve.

Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.

If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption.

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

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.

The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty.

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

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.

Men as well as rivers grow crooked by following the path of least resistance.

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.

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.

In a free society with a government based on reason, it is inevitable that there will be no uniform opinion about important issues. Those accustomed to suppression and control by governmental authority see this as leading only to chaos. But a government of the people requires difference of opinion in order to discover truth and to take advantage of the opportunity that only understanding brings.

The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.

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