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The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.

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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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
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Monarchy
Federal
Cures
Tend
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The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
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Those who wish to be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be.
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We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
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Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
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Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
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Knowledge indeed is a desirable, a lovely possession.
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In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.
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The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.
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In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
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If the book be false in its facts, disprove them if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.
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the boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the sole guardians of the principles we deliver over to them.
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There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
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Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched?
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Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
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The colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe. While Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, all other countries give it to the latter.
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Good wine is a necessity of life for me.
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When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The objects of their desires are changed what they were fond of before has become indifferent they were free while under the restraint of laws, but they would fain now be free to act against law.
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Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses.
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It is left... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.
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