Thomas Jefferson

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.

I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

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

I am mortified to be told that in the United States of America the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry and of criminal inquiry too.

No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

I succeed him no one could replace him.

No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame its parts their functions and actions.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

All authority belongs to the people.

Advertisements contain the only truth to be relied on in a newspaper.

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through it is best to meet it with firmness and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil while fretting and fuming only increase your own torments.

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollection of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Enlighten the people, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

When describing the University of Virginia: Here, We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.