Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Politics

• I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Thinking, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.461, Penguin
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  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Strength, Wisdom, Veterans Day

  Letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Government, Political

  Letter to Archibald Stewart, 23 Dec. 1791

• The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Time, Godly

  Thomas Jefferson (1774). “A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)”, p.31, Academic Resources Corp

• To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Men, Ideas

• Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Wisdom, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

• A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.65, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Government, Liberty

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.82

• The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Political, Politics, Projects

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.301

• The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Happiness, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.8, Modern Library

• Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Trust, Government, People

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.259, Cambridge University Press

• The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, War, Patriotic

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1786-1787”, p.263, Cosimo, Inc.

• It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Truth, Freedom

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 17 (1781 - 1785)

• When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Truth, Knowledge

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.216

• I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Peace, Exercise

  Letter to William Charles Jarvis, 28 Sept. 1820

• The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Party, People

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.80, Modern Library

• If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Change, Errors, Safety

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Rights, Law

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.118

• To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Judging, Political

  Thomas Jefferson “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, Lulu.com

• I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Philosophy, Party, Men

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.410, Cambridge University Press

• I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Army, Names

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.277

• What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Gun

  Letter toWilliam Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

• Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, People, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson, J. Jefferson Looney (2004). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815”, p.212, Princeton University Press

• The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Sea, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.182, Cambridge University Press

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