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Founders' Quote Database

Thomas Jefferson

First Inaugural Address — 1801
Category: Justice
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious or political.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Taylor — 1816
Category: Republican Government
If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko — 1810
Category: Government
The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Adams — 1796
Category: Government
This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on Virginia, Query 12 — 1782
Category: Congress
On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?

Thomas Jefferson

letter to George Logan — 1805
Category: Politics and Parties
The duty of an upright administration is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing of these family dissentions, and to cherish the good principles of both parties.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Thomas McKean — 1801
Category: Politics and Parties
To restore... harmony,... to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man really a patriot.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to William Duane — 1811
Category: Politics and Parties
If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Adams — 1817
Category: Political Leaders
Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect.

Thomas Jefferson

Second Inaugural Address — 1805
Category: The Press
During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.

Thomas Jefferson

Second Inaugural Address — 1805
Category: America
We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Richard M. Johnson — 1808
Category: Political Leaders
It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Abigail Adams — 1804
Category: Political Leaders
With those who wish to think amiss of me, I have learned to be perfectly indifferent; but where I know a mind to be ingenuous, and to need only truth to set it to rights, I cannot be passive.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Richard M. Johnson — 1808
Category: Virtue
I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.

Thomas Jefferson

Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia — 1818
Category: Education
To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14 — 1781
Category: The People
But of all the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Edward Carrington — 1787
Category: Education
Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Wayles Eppes — 1813
Category: Budget
It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, "never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principal within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith."

Thomas Jefferson

letter to James Madison — 1789
Category: Budget
But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.

Thomas Jefferson

Draft Constitution for the State of Virginia — 1776
Category: Arms
No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].

Thomas Jefferson

Rights of British America — 1774
Category: Taxation
Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to James Madison — 1784
Category: Taxation
Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to James Madison — 1784
Category: Taxation
Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Gouverneur Morris — 1793
Category: Taxation
It must be observed that our revenues are raised almost wholly on imported goods.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Taylor — 1798
Category: Taxation
Excessive taxation...will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.

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