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 [31-60] of 257 Thomas Jefferson quotesThomas Jefferson QuotesThomas Jefferson Previous 30 quotes Next 30 quotes 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 do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.~ Thomas Jefferson I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.~ Thomas Jefferson I hope we shall take warning from the example of England and 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.~ Thomas Jefferson I never did, or countenanced, in public life, a single act inconsistent with the strictest good faith; having never believed there was one code of morality for a public, and another for a private man.~ Thomas Jefferson I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.~ Thomas Jefferson I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared ... We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude ... The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public money. We are endeavoring to reduce the government to the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening the people ...~ 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 I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.~ Thomas Jefferson I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations. ... Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.~ Thomas Jefferson If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.~ Thomas Jefferson In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.~ 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 has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.~ Thomas Jefferson It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use and authority of reason as to administer medication to the dead.~ 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 It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.~ Thomas Jefferson It is unfortunate, that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors, & even with crimes. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end.~ Thomas Jefferson Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.~ Thomas Jefferson Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.~ Thomas Jefferson Let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.~ 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 has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.~ Thomas Jefferson No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.~ Thomas Jefferson Nothing can be more exactly and seriously true than what is there [the very words only of Jesus] stated; that but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.~ 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 Previous 30 quotes Next 30 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print