Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

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.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

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.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.