Some Timely Quotes From Mr. Jefferson

"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. "

-Thomas Jefferson

"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. "

-Thomas Jefferson

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. "

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-Thomas Jefferson

"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. "

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-Thomas Jefferson

"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. "

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-Thomas Jefferson

"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. "

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-Thomas Jefferson

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

-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

"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. " 

-Thomas Jefferson