The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
THOMAS JEFFERSONThe legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
THOMAS JEFFERSONLet us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.
THOMAS JEFFERSONWhere the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
THOMAS JEFFERSONEnlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
THOMAS JEFFERSONBe polite to all, but intimate with few.
THOMAS JEFFERSONPeace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
THOMAS JEFFERSONI had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.
THOMAS JEFFERSONEvery day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.
THOMAS JEFFERSONNo people can be both ignorant and free.
THOMAS JEFFERSONDetermine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.
THOMAS JEFFERSONThe 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.
THOMAS JEFFERSONWe in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.
THOMAS JEFFERSONTake care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves.
THOMAS JEFFERSONI cannot live without books.
THOMAS JEFFERSONA great deal of love given to a few is better than a little to many.
THOMAS JEFFERSONI am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it’s laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.
THOMAS JEFFERSON