Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Limited Government
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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.
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Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
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The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
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When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
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Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.
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Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
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Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
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An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.
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I have sworn upon the altar of god.
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A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
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No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
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Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
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I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
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Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
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Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.
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An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
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We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
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I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
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The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
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I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
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The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
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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.
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Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
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The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
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Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
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The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
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For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
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I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.
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