2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

My general plan would be to make the States one as to everything connected with foreign nations and several as to everything purely domestic.

The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate.

The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.

I could say much about politics, our only entertainment here, but you would not care a fig about that.

That government that governs least governs best.

It has also been a great solace to me, to believe that you are engaged in vindicating to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to them, in all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we had assisted too in acquiring for them. If ever the earth has beheld a system of administration conducted with a single and steadfast eye to the general interest and happiness of those committed to it, one which, protected by truth, can never know reproach, it is that to which our lives have been devoted.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.

A single good government becomes... a blessing to the whole earth, its welcome to the oppressed restraining within certain limits the measure of their oppressions. But should even this be counteracted by violence on the right of expatriation, the other branch of our example then presents itself for imitation: to rise on their rulers and do as we have done.