Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [161-180] of 579 President quotesPresident QuotesPresident Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under the protection of habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected – these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us.~ Thomas Jefferson I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple. Were we directed from Washington when to sow, when to reap, we should soon want bread.~ Thomas Jefferson I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.~ Thomas Jefferson I discharge every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition Law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image.~ Thomas Jefferson I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in something like a British constitution, had some weight in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous meetings with Congress, and other forms of the same character, calculated to prepare us gradually for a change which he believed possible, and to let it come on with as little shock as might be to the public mind.~ Thomas Jefferson I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.~ Thomas Jefferson I tolerate with utmost latitude the right of others to differ with me in opinion without imputing to them criminality. I know too well all the weaknesses and uncertainty of human reason to wonder at its different results.~ Thomas Jefferson It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others.~ Thomas Jefferson It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.~ Thomas Jefferson It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.~ Thomas Jefferson Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.~ Thomas Jefferson No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].~ Thomas Jefferson No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.~ Thomas Jefferson Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.~ Thomas Jefferson On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.~ Thomas Jefferson Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.~ Thomas Jefferson Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.~ Thomas Jefferson Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise...~ Thomas Jefferson Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.~ Thomas Jefferson Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.~ Thomas Jefferson Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print