Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Thomas
Jefferson Quotes by Category - This collection contains over 2,700
quotations from the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
"Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights, and
with an innate sense of justice; and... he [can] be restrained from
wrong and protected in right, by moderate powers, confided to persons
of his own choice, and held to their duties by dependence on his own
will."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson,
1823. ME 15:441
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
"Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right
of self-government."
--Opinion on Residence Bill, 1790. ME 3:60
That government is best which governs the least, because its people
discipline themselves."
"One man with courage is a majority."
"The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we
may safely moor."
--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1801. ME 10:255
"The government which can wield the arm of the people must be
the strongest possible."
--Thomas Jefferson to Isaac Weaver, Jr., 1807. ME 11:221
"Every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what
forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will."
--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Pinckney, 1792. ME 9:7
"Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom"
"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 Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against
every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest
on inference."
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing
which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations
down to a town meeting or a vestry.
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our
motto."
“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have
come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”
"The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the
judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."
[Sept 6, 1819]
"The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the
constitution of the federal Judiciary"
