Thomas Jefferson Quotes
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure., November 13, 1787, letter to William Stephens Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
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.
I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.
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.
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. -- in "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. to Peter Carr, 1785. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. -- to George Washington, 1796. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Those who don't read the newspapers are better off than those who do insofar as those who know nothing are better off than those whose heads are filled with half-truths and lies.
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus, building a wall of separation between Church and State., 1802, quoted in Andrew A. Lipscomb's Writings 16:281
When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated., 1821
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion. Enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.
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., Bill for the More General diffusion of Knowledge (1778).
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.
...Societies exist under three forms, sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments, wherein the will of every one has a just influence; as is the case in Enngland, in a slight degree, and in our States, in a great one. 3. Under governments of force; as is the case in all other monarchies, and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existance under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep....The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that, enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has its evils, too; the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosum libertatum quam quietum servitutum. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. 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, with have 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.
Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have .... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
...I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves. The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro' the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right:...Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves.... in a letter to Colonel Edward Carrington about the perpetrators of Shays's Rebellion.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be... if we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.
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 invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed., letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p322.
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.
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
The Judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric., 1820
Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.
The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.
The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.
On every question of construction 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 invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
One single object...[will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to others., Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1785).
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. ...the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights., in a letter to Francis W. Gilmor, July 7, 1786
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
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.
The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.
We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. -- to John Cartwright, 1824. Memorial Edition 16:45, Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security. , Eighth Annual Message, November 8, 1808
To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, 'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.'
The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys., 1821
If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence.
Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action.
The moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing.
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