Quote

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.

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
Law
Conduct
Force
Fundamental
Give
Fundamentals
Without
Lays
Right
Rules
Must
Conscience
Giving
Mere
Founded
Laws
Arbitrary

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Nothing is so engaging as the little domestic cares into which you appear to be entering, and as to reading it is useful for onlyfilling up the chinks of more useful and healthy occupations.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
War is not the best engine for us to resort to nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Never use two words when one will do.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
This formidable censor of the public functionaries [the press], by arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform peaceably, which must otherwise be done by revolution. It is also the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man and improving him as a rational, moral, and social being.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
He who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We are sensible of the duty and expediency of submitting our opinions to the will of the majority, and can wait with patience till they get right if they happen to be at any time wrong.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The power of declaring war being with the Legislature, the Executive should do nothing necessarily committing them to decide for war in preference of non-intercourse, which will be preferred by a great many.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army
Thomas Jefferson