“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“As Thomas Jefferson proclaimed, “In matters of fashion, swim with the current. In matters of conscience, stand like a rock.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Were it left to 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.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“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 law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. ”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“[Christianity is] the most ... perverted system that ever shone on man.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“There is a ripeness of time for death,
regarding others as well as ourselves, when it is reasonable we should drop off, and make room for
another growth. When we have lived our generation out, we should not wish to encroach on another.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
