“All [reforms] can be… [achieved] peaceably by the people confining their choice of Representatives and Senators to persons attached to republican government and the principles of 1776; not office-hunters, but farmers whose interests are entirely agricultural. Such men are the true representatives of the great American interest and are alone to be relied on for expressing the proper American sentiments.” – Thomas Jefferson to A. Campbell, 1797.

“Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,—entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;…freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected,—these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.” – Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address. March 4, 1801.
“Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.” – Thomas Jefferson

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government. ” – Thomas Jefferson

“A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.” - Thomas Jefferson

“A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.” -Thomas Jefferson

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. “ – Thomas Jefferson

“”Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” – Thomas Jefferson

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” -Thomas Jefferson

“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.” - Thomas Jefferson

“Always take hold of things by the smooth handle. ” – Thomas Jefferson

“An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry. ” -Thomas Jefferson

“An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes. “ – Thomas Jefferson

“An injured friend is the bitterest of foes. “ – Thomas Jefferson

“As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also. “ – Thomas Jefferson

“Be polite to all, but intimate with few. “ – Thomas Jefferson

“Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.” - Thomas Jefferson

“But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government. “ – Thomas Jefferson

“Delay is preferable to error.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” – Thomas Jefferson

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