Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-30] of 257 Thomas Jefferson quotesThomas Jefferson QuotesThomas Jefferson Next 30 quotes A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.~ Thomas Jefferson A government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns, not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city or small township, but by representatives chosen by himself and responsible to him at short periods.~ Thomas Jefferson A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.~ Thomas Jefferson A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.~ Thomas Jefferson 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 felicity.~ Thomas Jefferson Agriculture, manufacturers, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.~ Thomas Jefferson An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.~ Thomas Jefferson And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.~ Thomas Jefferson And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government or information to the people. This last is the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.~ Thomas Jefferson And, finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.~ Thomas Jefferson At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.~ Thomas Jefferson By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil, which no honest government should decline.~ Thomas Jefferson Convinced that the republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind, my prayers & efforts shall be cordially distributed to the support of that we have so happily established. It is indeed an animating thought that, while we are securing the rights of ourselves & our posterity, we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also. Heaven help their struggles, and lead them, as it has done us, triumphantly thro' them.~ Thomas Jefferson Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens.~ Thomas Jefferson Error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is left free to combat it.~ Thomas Jefferson Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.~ Thomas Jefferson Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason.~ Thomas Jefferson Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow.~ Thomas Jefferson Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.~ Thomas Jefferson For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security.~ Thomas Jefferson Force (is) the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.~ Thomas Jefferson 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 Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people. ~ Thomas Jefferson He [King George III] has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.~ Thomas Jefferson History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.~ Thomas Jefferson Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.~ Thomas Jefferson 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.~ 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 am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors indeed more at their ease at the expense of the people. The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given much more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen States in the course of eleven years is but one for each State in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power in the hands of the government prevent insurrections. In England, where the hand of power is heavier than with us, there are seldom half a dozen years without an insurrection. In France, where it is still heavier but less despotic, as Montesquieu supposes, than in some other countries and where there are always two or three hundred thousand men ready to crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the three years I have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts.~ 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 preserved to the states or to the people.' ... To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill (chartering the first Bank of the United States), have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution.~ Thomas Jefferson Next 30 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print