Thomas Jefferson

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

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

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

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

One man with courage is a majority.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.