Thomas Jefferson

• “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
• “A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. ”
• “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government. ”
• “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. ”
• “Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind. ”
• “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto. ”
• “Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government. ”
• “Delay is preferable to error. ”
• “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. ”
• “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. ”
• “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. ”
• “Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”
• “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. ”
• “For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. ”
• “He who knows best knows how little he knows.”
• “He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
• “History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is. ”
• “I cannot live without books.”
• “I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”
• “I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.”
• “I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”
• “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
• “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”
• “If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?”
• “It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.”
• “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”
• “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”
• “Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”
• “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”
• “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
• “Never spend your money before you have earned it.”
• “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”
• “No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.” (although I think there are exceptions; Reagan, for one)
• “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
• “One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”
• “Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.”
• “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”
• “Power is not alluring to pure minds.”
• “Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.” (i.e. “teabaggers”)
• “Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”
• “Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.”
• “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.”
• “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
• “The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.”
• “The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.”
• “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.”
• “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
• “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”
• “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
• “When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred. ”
• “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”
• “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”
• “Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”
• “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
• “A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.”
• “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”