The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was one of our founding fathers and his words still ring true today. He knew that we would make mistakes with our government and he also knew what we should do to fix it. After viewing this pass it on to others.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people .....  They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Information is the currency of democracy.

It does me no injury for my neighbour to say, there are twenty gods or no God.

It is error alone which needs the support of government.  Truth can stand by itself.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes.  A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what its for their own good.

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body.  Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.

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

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

The government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

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

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When the press if free and every man able to read, all is safe.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.