THOMAS JEFFERSON

"I know my own principles to be pure and therefore am not ashamed of them. On the contrary, I wish them known and therefore willingly express them to everyone. They are the same I have acted on from the year 1775 to this day, and are the same, I am sure, with those of the great body of the American people." -- to Samuel Smith, 1798

Jefferson on LIBERTY...

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

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." -- to A. Stuart, 1791.

"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But 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 right of an individual." --to I. Tiffany, 1819.

"Nothing... is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man." --to J. Cartwright, 1824.

Jefferson on EQUALITY...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence

Jefferson on FREE SPEECH...

"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or change its republican form, let them stand as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

Jefferson on LIFESTYLES...

"A mind employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe for felicity." - Thomas Jefferson"Honesty is the 1st chapter in the book of wisdom."

"In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock."

"Good wine is a necessity of life for me."

"I cannot live without books"

" The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best."

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

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

Jefferson on DEMOCRACY...

"The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object."

"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 that control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion." Another version has been spotted that runs like this: "I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform them by education."

Jefferson on IDEAS...

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea,which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

Jefferson on PRESS...

"Information is the currency of democracy."

"The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper."

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

"Were it left for me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

"I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it."

"If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be...if we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed."

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that men can be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effective hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."

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

"The people cannot be all, and always, well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty." --to W. Smith, 1787.

Jefferson on GOOD GOVERNMENT...

"It rests not with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace and concord the blessings of self-government, so long denied to mankind: to show by example the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs and that the will of the majority, the Natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man."

"...wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, [and] shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits." --1801 Inaugural Address

"Laws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits." --to I. McPherson, 1813.

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

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." --to M. D'Ivernois, 1795.

"That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone." --to H. Gates, 1798.

"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." He also wrote: "If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force."

"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."

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."

"It had become an universal and almost uncontroverted position in the several States, that the purposes of society do not require a surrender of all our rights to our ordinary governors; that there are certain portions of right not necessary to enable them to carry on an effective government, and which experience has nevertheless proved they will be constantly encroaching on, if submitted to them; that there are also certain fences which experience has proved peculiarly efficacious against wrong, and rarely obstructive of right, which yet the governing powers have ever shown a disposition to weaken and remove. Of the first kind, for instance, is freedom of religion; of the second, trial by jury, habeas corpus laws, free presses." --to N. Webster, 1790.

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force."

"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."

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."

Jefferson on REASON/ JUSTICE...

"It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use and authority of reason as to administer medication to the dead."

"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

"I believe that justice is instinct and innate, the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing."

"Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice." --to W. Johnson, 1823.

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. 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 blindfolded fear." --letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787

"Reason and free inquiry are the only effective agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruption's of Christianity could not have been purged away."

Jefferson on REBELLION...

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

"I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another."

"Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one." --to Lafayette, 1815.

"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." -- letter to William S. Smith.

Jefferson on RELIGION...

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

"I never told my religion nor scrutinize that of another. I never attempted to make a convert nor wished to change another's creed. I have judged of others' religion by their lives, for it is from our lives and not from our words that our religion must be read. By the same test must the world judge me."

"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose." --to Horatio Spafford.

Jefferson on THE CONSTITUTION...

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --letter to William Johnson.

"You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.... The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal." -- Thomas JeffersonThe Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."