Top 58 Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes

#1. With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #10357
#2. An hereditary aristocracy ... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #28345
#3. The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #30317
#4. Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #49603
#5. It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers but by their distribution that good government is effected.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #55981
#6. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #61019
#7. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government ...

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #67221
#8. [T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore ... never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #87530
#9. To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #93076
#10. The right of self-government does not comprehend the government of others.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #106816
#11. The foundation on which (our government is) built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office, and particularly the denial of a pre-eminence by birth.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #107988
#12. I sincerely believe 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.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #109061
#13. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #136263
#14. The executive, in our government is not the sole, it is scarcely the principle, object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislature is the most formidable dread at present and will be for many years. That of the executive will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote period.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #141224
#15. With all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing, or that ever did exist.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #144909
#16. The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #146156
#17. The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #155771
#18. I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #158735
#19. Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #170021
#20. The founding fathers went out of their way to establish a clear "wall of separation" between religion and state, to quote Thomas Jefferson. They reasoned, as James Madison so cleverly articulated, that both religion and government exist in greater purity if kept apart.

Phil Zuckerman

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #183531
#21. No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #218348
#22. We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #233042
#23. No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #236675
#24. The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #244375
#25. Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #251289
#26. Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #255703
#27. The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #255754
#28. The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #255965
#29. A quote from the American Thomas Jefferson. A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.

Steve Berry

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #259214
#30. I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #275792
#31. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #283162
#32. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #289335
#33. The States should be urged to concede to the General Government, with a saving of chartered rights, the exclusive power of establishing banks of discount for paper.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #303808
#34. The cement of this union is in the heart blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #323150
#35. To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government
as a barrier against foreign foes ... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #336279
#36. Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #338852
#37. Those who bear equally the burthens of Government should equally participate of its benefits.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #342003
#38. We need a revolution every 20 years just to keep government honest.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #352345
#39. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #352878
#40. The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #360049
#41. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #376208
#42. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that [a society without government, as among our Indians] is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #386820
#43. I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #387102
#44. [It is a] happy truth that man is capable of self-government, and only rendered otherwise by the moral degradation designedly superinduced on him by the wicked acts of his tyrant.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #431865
#45. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #435095
#46. History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #436285
#47. Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #451693
#48. When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #453420
#49. May it be to the world ... to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #532121
#50. The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #844382
#51. [We should be] determined ... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government ... in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #882345
#52. I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self- government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #951676
#53. No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see ... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #961546
#54. It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #1062216
#55. The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #1074571
#56. We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self - government.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #1177717
#57. I have so much confidence in the good sense of man, and his qualifications for self-government, that I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert her force.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #1632504
#58. Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson Self Government Quotes #1702849

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