Thomas Jefferson

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him.

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 first will not be able to destroy us.

The will of the majority, the natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other.

It is incumbent on those who would thwart the will of the people to show that they have a better reason.

The most important of all things is to be able to think for yourself.

I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing by every device the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.

No man ever yet thought so meanly of the intellect of the mass of the people, as to suppose they could not understand him.

Ignorance is the tool of tyrants.

The earth belongs in usufruct to the living; the dead have neither rights nor powers over it.

I have a great opinion of the common sense of the people.

The government you elect is the government you deserve.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute allegiance.

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

I have so much confidence in the good sense of the people, and in the truth of the facts, that I have no doubt that they will ultimately decide right.

The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.