Quotes - Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. -Thomas Jefferson

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms..disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one." - Thomas Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria, Criminologist in 1764. That was 230 years ago. -Thomas Jefferson

"The constitutions of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; 
that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property and freedom 
of the press." Thomas Jefferson 

"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.-Thomas Jefferson

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.-Thomas Jefferson

Power is not alluring to pure minds.-Thomas Jefferson

Most bad government has grown out of too much government.-Thomas Jefferson

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?-Thomas Jefferson

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.-Thomas Jefferson

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.-Thomas Jefferson

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.-Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.-Thomas Jefferson

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.-Thomas Jefferson

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.-Thomas Jefferson

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.-Thomas Jefferson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.