Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Famous Quotes from Thomas jefferson, former President of the United States.

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

~ Thomas Jefferson

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

~ Thomas Jefferson

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.

~ Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

~ Thomas Jefferson

On every question of construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

~ Thomas Jefferson

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

~ Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

~ Thomas Jefferson

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

~ Thomas Jefferson

When the people fear their government there is Tyranny. When the government fears the people there is Liberty.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

~ Thomas Jefferson

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.

~ Thomas Jefferson

I am not a friend to a very energetic government, it is always oppressive. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

~ Thomas Jefferson

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