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Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
Architect
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Diplomat
Farmer
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Jurist
Lawyer
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Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Taking
Democracy
Rights
Away
People

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
Thomas Jefferson
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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
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If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's.
Thomas Jefferson
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Victory and defeat are each of the same price.
Thomas Jefferson
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The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.
Thomas Jefferson
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The trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.
Thomas Jefferson
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[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
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The eyes of our citizens are not sufficiently open to the true cause of our distress. They ascribe them to everything but their true cause, the banking system
Thomas Jefferson
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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
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Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.
Thomas Jefferson
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You have never by a word or a deed given me one moment's uneasiness on the contrary I have felt perpetual gratitude to heaven forhaving given me, in you, a source of so much pure and unmixed happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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Trial by jury is part of that bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
Thomas Jefferson
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Knowledge is power...knowled ge is safety...knowle dge is happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson
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In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
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I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.
Thomas Jefferson
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I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.
Thomas Jefferson
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I leave to others the sublime delights of riding in the storm, better pleased with sound sleep & a warmer berth below it encircled, with the society of neighbors, friends & fellow laborers of the earth rather than with spies & sycophants ... I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas Jefferson
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[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.
Thomas Jefferson