More Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
The federal government is our servant, not our master.
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.
Free men do not ask permission to bear arms
It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.
You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.
Equal rights for all, special privileges for none
When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.
The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.
