2,194 Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste.

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Gotta love life's little ironies, for the same man once said:"Were it left for to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."And"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

I go to my fathers, I welcome the shoreWhich crowns all my hopes or which buries my cares.Then farewell, my dear, my lov'd daughter, adieu!The last pang of life is in parting from you!Two seraphs awaits me long shrouded in death;I will bear them your love on my last parting breath.

My general plan would be to make the states one as to every thing connected with foreign nations, and several as to every thing purely domestic. But with all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing or that ever did exist.