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The provisions we have made [for our government] are such as please ourselves they answer the substantial purposes of government and of justice, and other purposes than these should not be answered.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.
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We do not mean to count or weigh our contributions by any standard other than that of our abilities.
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The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.
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I would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.
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If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
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Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.
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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 blind-folded fear.
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I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self- government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.
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It is better to have no ideas than false ones.
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Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
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The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.
Thomas Jefferson
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The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.
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Where thought is free in its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself.
Thomas Jefferson
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letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilisation.
Thomas Jefferson
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The mass of the citizens is the safest depositary of their own rights.
Thomas Jefferson
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The following [addition to the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me: The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the [United States] with foreign nations.
Thomas Jefferson
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Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.
Thomas Jefferson
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Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.
Thomas Jefferson
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What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
Thomas Jefferson