Thomas Jefferson

The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny, are to diffuse it generally among the people, and to give to all, in proportion to their interest in it, a proportionate share in its exercise.

I have no doubt but that the misery of the poor, in great cities, is one of the greatest misfortunes to society.

On this foundation I hope the whole may be made to stand; and that from this principle, every generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness, consequently to change it as circumstances change.

The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

The will of the people, expressed by their suffrage, is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

The natural right of a man to impart his ideas to others is as sacred as his right to think at all.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.

No government can continue good but under the control of the people.

I am not a Federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself.

The best government is that which governs least.

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

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty.

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

The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.