Quote

[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.

Thomas Jefferson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
Architect
Cryptographer
Diplomat
Farmer
Inventor
Jurist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Soil
Truth
Government
People
Proprietors
Legitimate

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
But of all the views of this law [universal education] none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
History has informed us that bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The mass of our citizens may be divided into two classes -- the laboring and the learned. The laboring will need the first grade of education to qualify them for their pursuits and duties the learned will need it as a foundation for further acquirements.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
No country and no people can be free and ignorant at the same time.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will collections of men by that of their majority for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The hole and the patch should be commensurate.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.
Thomas Jefferson