Thomas Jefferson

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the source of all authority in that nation.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

The greatest danger to American freedom is a highly centralized government.

I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the General Government, and all those of that government to the Executive branch.

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

I have looked on man, in the course of my life, as a chemical analysis might look on a compound substance.

The operations of the executive branch depend on the confidence of the people.

The will of the people, expressed by their representatives, is the only legitimate foundation of any government.

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people.