Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [661-680] of 1279 Liberty quotesLiberty QuotesLiberty Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.~ Thomas Jefferson I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.~ Thomas Jefferson The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.~ Thomas Jefferson Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.~ Thomas Jefferson No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government.~ Thomas Jefferson Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.~ Thomas Jefferson The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.~ Thomas Jefferson I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.~ Thomas Jefferson If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.~ Thomas Jefferson An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State.~ Thomas Jefferson In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes.~ Thomas Jefferson That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.~ Thomas Jefferson I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.~ Thomas Jefferson The happiness and prosperity of our citizens is the only legitimate object of government.~ Thomas Jefferson Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.~ Thomas Jefferson Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.~ Thomas Jefferson The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.~ Thomas Jefferson To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom.~ Thomas Jefferson Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.~ Thomas Jefferson Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing ... this enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to it's consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man.~ Thomas Jefferson Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print