Thomas Jefferson

“Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.”

“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.”

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

“We never repent of having eaten too little.”

“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 discretio...”

“The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.”

“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”

“My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.”

“Never spend your money before you have earned it.”

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

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

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

“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.”

“The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”

“It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.”

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

“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

“No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.”

“Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.”

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