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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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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
Blood
Tempest
Happiness
Purchase
Littles
Secured
Little
Expense
Even
Expenses
Precious
Mass
Mankind

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Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice.
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Let those flatter who fear it is not an American art .
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Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?
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Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
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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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The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
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The most effective way to find ourselves enslaved will not be done openly. If weakened we will sink gradually. I ask, who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, .... except a few public officers.
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Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.
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Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
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Establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war.
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I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.
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As government grows, freedom recedes.
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All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
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Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.
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For St. Paul only says that it is better to be married than to burn. Now I presume that if that apostle had known that providence would at an after day be so kind to any particular set of people as to furnish them with other means of extinguishing their fire than those of matrimony, he would have earnestly recmmended them to their practice.
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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
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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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When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.
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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.
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My affections were first for my own country, then, generally, for all mankind
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