Thomas Jefferson (?) Quotes

... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.

The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

[An] act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.

Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.

I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.

As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.

The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.

What we learn to do, we learn by doing.

I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

New York, like London, seems to be a cloacina [toilet] of all the depravities of human nature.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.

I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances.

The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.

It is every Americans' right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself.

And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and libraries of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them.

A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.

Of all the cankers of human happiness none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful an influence, as indolence.

Civil officials have no business meddling in private religious affairs.

A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims.

I have great confidence in the common sense of mankind in general.

Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.

Inspirational Quotes on: Honesty, Simplicity, Secret, Universe, Modesty, Peace Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

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.

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .

Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.

Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.

The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.

The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.

We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but the guarrantors of only our own.

Where thought is free in its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself.

I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

When earth is rich it bids defiance to droughts, yields in abundance and of the best quality.

In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve.

Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.

Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.

Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.

Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.

Law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.