Quote

Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.

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
Voting
Proportion
Historical
Government
Something
People

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Self-love . . . is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable for, not the rightness, but the uprightness of the decision
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.
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
Dependence begets subservience and paves the way for tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists
Thomas Jefferson
Image
No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap.
Thomas Jefferson