More Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
Free men do not ask permission to bear arms
To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.
A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.
When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.
A true patriot will defend his country from its government.
It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.
I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. 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. 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.
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.
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
