Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Equal Rights

• Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Law, Tyrants

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.224, Cambridge University Press

• Equal rights for all, special privileges for none

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Equality, Rights

• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

• 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.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Patriotic, Equality

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

• No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Equality, Men, Rights

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.278

• the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Law, Majority Rule

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Tyrants, Inalienable Rights

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.224, Cambridge University Press

• The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Rights, Law

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Majority Rule, Tyranny Of The Majority, Minorities

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

• The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Rights, Individual

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.69, Modern Library

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