More Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
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.
When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.
When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.
When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.
The federal government is our servant, not our master.
It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.
A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.
When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
