Thomas Jefferson

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. … If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

"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. "

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men 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. "

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. "

"Delay is preferable to error. "

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. "

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto. "

"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. "

"Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. "

"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state. "

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. "

"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. "

"He who knows best knows how little he knows. "

"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. "

"Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism. "

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. "

"I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. "

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. "

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. "

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be. "

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion. "

"I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. "

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. "

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. "

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. "

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. "

"Information is the currency of democracy. "

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. "

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. "

"Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people. "

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. "

"Never spend your money before you have earned it. "

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. "

"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. "

"One man with courage is a majority. "

"Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. "

"Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it. "

"Power is not alluring to pure minds. "

"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. "

"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. "

"So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done. "

"That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part. "

"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave. "

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. "

"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 God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. "

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory. "

"The most successful war seldom pays for its losses. "

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. "

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. "

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. "

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. "

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. "

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. "

"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. "

"There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world. "

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty. "

"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. "

"Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society. "

"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. "

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "

"We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country. "

"When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property. "

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. "

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. "

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. "