Quote

Every constitution..., and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years [a generation]. If it be enforced longer, it is anact of force, and not of right.

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
Longer
Law
Force
Expires
Ends
Enforced
Right
Naturally
Every
Generation
Years
Constitution
Generations

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

Image
[If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The issue for patents for new discovers has given a spring to invention beyond my conception.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The fact is that one new idea leads to another, that to a third and so on through a course of time, until someone, with whom no one of these ideas was original, combines all together, and produces what is justly called a new invention.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights
Thomas Jefferson
Image
To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement
Thomas Jefferson
Image
What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired. Though to be candid, there are some who have too much good sense to esteem such monkey-like animals as these, in whose formation, as the saying is, the tailors and barbers go halves with God Almighty.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Never put off your massage until tomorrow if you can get it today.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
Image
I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old.
Thomas Jefferson