2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

It's only merit was in being the first publication which carried the claim of our rights their whole length, and asserted that there was no rightful link of connection between us and England but that of being under the same king.

[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.

Sensibility of mind is indeed the parent of every virtue, but it is the parent of much misery, too.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

...let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

this last establishment will probably be within a mile of Charlottesville, and four from Monticello, if the system should be adopted at all by our legislature who meet within a week from this time. my hopes however are kept in check by the ordinary character of our state legislatures, the members...