Zitat des Tages von Thomas Jefferson:
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
One man with courage is a majority.
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Determine 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.
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.
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.