Hello Guest

Author Topic: Thomas Jefferson wrote:  (Read 409 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Flyin6

  • Head cook and bottle washer
  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 34019
    • View Profile
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
« on: January 07, 2021, 12:18:17 PM »
From the Quill of Thomas Jefferson:                                                       

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements].

Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.

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

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

Democracy is two wolves deciding what to eat for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

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 second will not become the legalized version of the first.

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

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.

The disease of liberty is catching;

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

Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, 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.

A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves;

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

 
Site owner    Isaiah 6:8, Psalm 91 
NSDQ      Author of the books: Distant Thunder and Thoren

 

SimplePortal 2.3.6 © 2008-2014, SimplePortal