Thomas Jefferson

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our physics or geometry.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.

The strongest government is that which is most free.

The good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

The most important of all human endeavors is the improvement of the human mind.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

The only way to ensure a free society is to ensure a well-informed populace.

All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

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

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as in Europe.

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, will not escape periods of difficulty.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction.

The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches. We must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time, and eternally press forward for what is yet to get.

The most important of all arts is the art of living.

Man is an animal of creation, made to be free.

The happiness of society is the sole end of government.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.