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Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

Thomas Jefferson
Religious, Men, Issues

When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, People, Liberty

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

Thomas Jefferson
Law, Rebellion, Duty

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. 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. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

Thomas Jefferson
Thinking, Government, Two
Letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824.

There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.

Thomas Jefferson
Safety, Individual, Justification

A true patriot will defend his country from its government.

Thomas Jefferson
Country, Government, Patriot

When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

Thomas Jefferson
Evil, Voting, Principles

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.

Thomas Jefferson
Achieve, Abandon, Security

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.

Thomas Jefferson
Fall, Government, Hands

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.

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Gun, Law

To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.

Thomas Jefferson
Effort, Trying

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

Thomas Jefferson
Courage, Patriotic, Men

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

Thomas Jefferson
Pursuit Of Happiness, Government, People
Declaration of Independence (1776).

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!

Thomas Jefferson
Freedom, 4th Of July, Patriotic
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph”, p.239

The federal government is our servant, not our master.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Masters, Servant

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms

Thomas Jefferson
Men, Arms, Libertarian

A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

Thomas Jefferson
Army, People, Liberty

Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

Thomas Jefferson
Rights, People, Democracy

The government you elect is the government you deserve.

Thomas Jefferson
Government, Deserve

[An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.

Thomas Jefferson
Law, Void, United States
Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.466, Cambridge University Press

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

Thomas Jefferson
Country, Freedom, Gun
Letter toWilliam Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.

Thomas Jefferson
Happiness, Government, People

The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.

Thomas Jefferson
Civil Rights, Abandon, Presses
Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. X (in 12 Volumes): Correspondence and Papers 1803-1807”, p.368, Cosimo, Inc.

You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.

Thomas Jefferson
Mean, Army, Government
Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence and miscellanies from the papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.343

To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

Thomas Jefferson
Freedom, Judging, Political
Thomas Jefferson “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, Lulu.com