Quotessence
Home / Books / The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private

Book by Thomas Jefferson · 5 quotes · Men, Liberty, Government

Filter quotes by topic

The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private Quotes

“The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.”

“We may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights and especially that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient.”

“When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state”

“A noiseless course, not meddling with the affairs of others, unattractive of notice, is a mark that society is going on in happiness. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.”