Quotes from Thomas Jefferson

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education

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 and bread it has earned -- this is the sum of good government

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated

the true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best . . . (for) when all government . . . shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as . . . oppressive as the government from which we separated

When all government, domestic and foreign, 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

Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact casus non faederis to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them

The only greater evil than separation... is living under a government of discretion

The purpose of a written constitution is to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force

Of all exercises walking is the best.

I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers ... We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the.

In matters of principals, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.

The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish piecemeal.

I have lived temperately . . . I double the doctors recommendation of a glass and a half of wine a day and even treble it with a friend.

I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

The execution of the laws is more important than the making them

Experience (has) long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can when we cannot do all we would wish.

The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

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.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.