Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
Thomas Jefferson

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

Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
Thomas Jefferson

Taste cannot be controlled by law.
Thomas Jefferson

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

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
Thomas Jefferson

The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
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

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Thomas Jefferson

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Thomas Jefferson

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
Thomas Jefferson

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
Thomas Jefferson

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
Thomas Jefferson

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
Thomas Jefferson