Thomas Jefferson

How disappointed Thomas Jefferson would be in the people of this nation and in himself for giving them far more credit than they deserve. The people of this country today are crying for a master which I believe they will no doubt get sooner than later.

 "My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!" -Thomas Jefferson

 "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -Thomas Jefferson

 "No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -Thomas Jefferson

 "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." -Thomas Jefferson's personnal moto.

 "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Thomas Jefferson

 "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." -Thomas Jefferson

  "The Constitution of most of the states (and of the United States) asserts that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." -Thomas Jefferson

 "On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p.322

 On Government mandates: " If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread." -Thomas Jefferson

 "The constitutions of most of our states [and of the United States] assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press." -Thomas Jefferson

 "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." -Thomas Jefferson

 "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations – entangling alliances with none." - President Thomas Jefferson, inaugural address, March 4, 1801. -- The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 3, p. 321 (1904). This thought had been similarly expressed earlier in his letter to Edward Carrington, December 21, 1787:"I know too that it is a maxim with us, and I think it a wise one, not to entangle ourselves with the affairs of Europe." -- The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 447 (1955). George Washington did not use any form of "entangle," but shared a like political view in his letters to Patrick Henry, October 9, 1795: "My ardent desire is . . . to keep the United States free from political connexions with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none," and to Gouverneur Morris, December 22, 1795: "My policy has been . . . to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none." -- Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, vol. 34, pp. 335, 401 (1940).

 "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787.Taken from "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson," edited by Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 442 (1955).

 "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time." -Thomas Jefferson (1774). From "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson," edited by Julian P. Boyd, vol. 9, p. 151 (1954).

 "The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . .[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Thaddeus Kosciusko, February 26, 1810. From "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson," edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol.12, pp. 369-70 (1904). In the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is a plaque inscribed with this quotation, lacking the first clause above.

 "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Vice President Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800. -- The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 10, p. 175 (1903). Carved at the base of the dome, interior of the Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.

 "When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property." - Attributed to Thomas Jefferson by B. L. Rayner, "Life of Thomas Jefferson," p. 356 (1834).

 "The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, September 6,1819. Found in "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson," edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 15, p. 213 (1904).

 "In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man,but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson

 "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." - Thomas Jefferson, A Letter to William Ludlow, 1824

"I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master." - Thomas Jefferson, A Letter to David Hartley; 1787

 "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson

 "Delay is preferable to error." - Thomas Jefferson

 "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." - Thomas Jefferson

 "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." -Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria.

 "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." -Thomas Jefferson, Bill for the More General diffusion of Knowledge (1778).

 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776.

 "The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Georgetown Republicans, 1809.

 "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.

 "Nothing... is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.

 "Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823.

 "Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on French Treaties, 1793.

 "Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." --Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770.

 "It is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow their end." --Thomas Jefferson: Report on Navigation of the Mississippi, 1791.

 "A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.

 "The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of Kings." --Thomas Jefferson to John Manners, 1817.

 "Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But 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 right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

 "That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates, 1798.

 "In a government bottomed on the will of all, the... liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all." --Thomas Jefferson: 5th Annual Message, 1805.

 "It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

 "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." --Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791.

 "To secure these [inalienable] rights [to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776.

 "The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816.

 "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

 "It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795.

 "All... natural rights may be abridged or modified in [their] exercise by law." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on Residence Bill, 1790.

 "Laws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 1813.

 "Circumstances sometimes require, that rights the most unquestionable should be advanced with delicacy." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1791.

 "The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay, 1790.

 "It had become an universal and almost uncontroverted position in the several States, that the purposes of society do not require a surrender of all our rights to our ordinary governors; that there are certain portions of right not necessary to enable them to carry on an effective government, and which experience has nevertheless proved they will be constantly encroaching on, if submitted to them; that there are also certain fences which experience has proved peculiarly efficacious against wrong, and rarely obstructive of right, which yet the governing powers have ever shown a disposition to weaken and remove. Of the first kind, for instance, is freedom of religion; of the second, trial by jury, habeas corpus laws, free presses." --Thomas Jefferson to Noah Webster, 1790.

 "If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1782.

 "No one has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816.

 "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." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816.

 "We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813.

 "Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

 "The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823

 "I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804

 "Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this. This sense is as much a part of his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787.

 "God has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814.

 "Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814.

 "The true fountains of evidence [are] the head and heart of every rational and honest man. It is there nature has written her moral laws, and where every man may read them for himself." --Thomas Jefferson: French Treaties Opinion, 1793.

 "I believe that justice is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1823.

 "Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois de deMarbois, 1817.

 "Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society." Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814.

 "A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society." --Thomas Jefferson to George Hammond, 1792.

 "Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us." --Thomas Jefferson to James Breckenridge, 1822.

 "We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals, our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural, 1805

 "It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.

 "When we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of society. I believe that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816.

 "Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

 "A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

 "Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Willard, 1789.

 "I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Augustus B. Woodward, 1824.

 "Political interest [can] never be separated in the long run from moral right." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1806.

 "It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely, and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion." --Thomas Jefferson to William Findley. 1801.

 "When [the moral sense] is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or the rejection of those among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness and even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty promotes interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those whose depravity is not too profound to be eradicated." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814.

 "The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816.

 "In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

 "I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others." --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811.

 "Force [is] the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801

 "Those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from...instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government than that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth nor experience." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.

 "Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

 "Experience declares 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." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.

 "When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality." --Thomas Jefferson M. deStael, 1807.

 "If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813.

 "It is unfortunate that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors, and even with crimes. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795.

 "It is a happy circumstance in human affairs that evils which are not cured in one way will cure themselves in some other." --Thomas Jefferson to John Sinclair, 1791

 "All power is inherent in the people." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.

 "From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.

 "Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816.

 "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776.

 "Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819.

 "The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823.

 "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.

 "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.

 "I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.

 "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes... But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is [the people's] right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776.

 "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.

 "Democrats consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them, therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1825.

 "The mass of the citizens is the safest depositary of their own rights." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.

 "I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

 "Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1825.

 "There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813.

 "The people...are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.

 "No government can continue good, but under the control of the people." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819.

 "No other depositories of power [but the people themselves] have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

 "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.

 "The people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositaries of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the free principles of the government." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823.

 "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789

 "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816

 "If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787.

 "I am convinced that, on the good sense of the people, we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.

 "It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

 "The cement of this Union is in the heart-blood of every American. I do not believe there is on earth a government established on so immovable a basis." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1815.

Richard Henry Lee

 "To preserve Liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them

-Richard Henry Lee, Letters from the Federal Farmer

Abraham Lincoln

 "What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not... the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army... our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms."

-Abraham Lincoln, 1858

 "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

-Abraham Lincoln

James Madison

 "There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation."

-James Madison

 "A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."

-James Madison

 "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion..... in private self-defense."

-James Madison

 "Besides, the advantage of being armed forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would certainly shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did."

-James Madison

By the time James Madison uttered these words, Switzerland had already been a free and armed republic for nearly 250 years. The Swiss government insists that every able bodied person between 18 and 45 years of age possess a military style firearm and ammunition. Switzerland is still a free, armed republic today after nearly 460 years, and was the only nation in Europe that Hitler didn't dare invade. The Swiss also have the lowest crime rate of any nation in Europe. Armed crime in Switzerland is so rare they don't even keep statistics on it. (JP)

 "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it."

-James Madison

 "We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

- James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution

 "Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."

- James Madison

George Mason

 "I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."

-George Mason, Letters from the Federal Farmer

 "To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them..."

-George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates 380.

George Orwell

 "Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past."

-George Orwell

 "Thought crime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."

-George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Thomas Paine

 "It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf."

-- Thomas Paine (The American Crisis, No. 1, 19 December 1776)

 "The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside....Horrid mischief would ensue were one half of the world deprived of the use of them..."

- Thomas Paine, I Writings of Thomas Paine at 56 (1894)

 "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

-- Thomas Paine

 "...The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike, but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue...the weak will become a prey to the strong. "

-Thomas Paine

  "Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one."

- Thomas Paine Common Sense; 1776

 "Character is much easier kept than recovered."

- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, no. 13; 1783

  "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if socelestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated."

- Thomas Paine; 1776

Plato

 "Those too intelligent to dabble in politics are punished - they're governed by those less intelligent."

-Plato

Ronald Reagan

  We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development.
( September 29, 1981 )

  The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
( Address to the National Alliance of Business, October 5, 1981 )

  Government has an important role in helping develop a country's economic foundation. But the critical test is whether government is genuinely working to liberate individuals by creating incentives to work, save, invest, and succeed.
( October 30, 1981 )

  Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.
( Address to the New York City Partnership Association, January 14, 1982 )

  We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
( Address to National Association of Realtors, March 28, 1982 )

  It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history.... [It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.
( Speech to Britain's Parliament, 1982 )

  Let us beware that while they [Soviet rulers] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination over all the peoples of the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.... I urge you to beware the temptation ... to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of any evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.
( Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, March 8, 1983 )

  I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering those nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
( Address to the Nation, March 23, 1983 )

  There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder.
( Address to the University of South Carolina, Columbia, September 20, 1983 )

  History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
( Address to the nation, January 16, 1984 )

 We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.
( Normandy, France, June 6, 1984 )

  The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.
( Normandy, France, June 6, 1984 )

  We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them -- this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."
( Speech about the Challenger disaster, January 28, 1986 )

  Government growing beyond our consent had become a lumbering giant, slamming shut the gates of opportunity, threatening to crush the very roots of our freedom. What brought America back? The American people brought us back -- with quiet courage and common sense; with undying faith that in this nation under God the future will be ours, for the future belongs to the free.
( State of the Union Address, February 4, 1986 )

  [G]overnment's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
( Remarks to the White House Conference on Small Business, August 15, 1986 )

  The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
( Remarks at Human Rights Day event, December 10, 1986 )

  How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
( Remarks in Arlington, Virginia, September 25, 1987 )

  Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
( Speech near the Berlin Wall, 1987 )

  Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.
( Address to students at Moscow State University, May 31, 1988 )

  The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
( Attributed )

  Republicans believe every day is 4th of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15.
( Attributed )

  "After watching the State of the Union address the other night, I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case, it's not flattery, but grand larceny: the intellectual theft of ideas that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats."
( RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994 )

  "Although the political landscape has changed, the bold ideas of the 1980's are alive and well. Republican candidates swept every major election across the country last year... and as a result, it seems that our opponents have finally realized how unpopular liberalism really is. So now they're trying to dress their liberal agenda in a conservative overcoat."
( RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994 )

  Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.
( October 27, 1964 )

  Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp. ( October 27, 1964 )
[Contributor's note: The Tax Foundation reports government at all levels now takes 49% of personal income, minus transfer payments.]

  "However, our task is far from over. Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980's were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there."
( RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994 )

  If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.
( October 27, 1964 )

  "In an ironic sense, Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis -- a crisis where the demands of the economic order are colliding directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union.... [Communism will be] left on the ash heap of history."
( June 1982 )

  "It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence abroad, and the collapse of imperial Communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag."
( RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994 )

  It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
( October 27, 1964 )

 "Now, as most of you know, I'm not one for looking back. I figure there will be plenty of time for that when I get old. But rather, what I take from the past is inspiration for the future, and what we accomplished during our years at the White House must never be lost amid the rhetoric of political revisionists."
( RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994 )

  Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
( October 27, 1964 )

  "Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere."
( FORTUNE, September 15, 1986 )

  "The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now."
( RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994 )

 The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
( October 27, 1964 )

  "The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written."
( Notre Dame Univ., May 17, 1981 )

  They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
( October 27, 1964 )

  We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments.
( October 27, 1964 )

  We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.
( October 27, 1964 )

  We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. . . . But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.
( October 27, 1964 )

  Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.
( October 27, 1964 )

  You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
( October 27, 1964 )

 You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
( October 27, 1964 )

  For you see, my fellow Republicans, we are the change!
( RNC speech, August 17, 1992 )

  The poet called Miss Liberty's torch, "the lamp beside the golden door." Well, that was the entrance to America, and it still is. And now you really know why we're here tonight.
The glistening hope of that lamp is still ours. Every promise every opportunity is still golden in this land. And through that golden door our children can walk into tomorrow with the knowledge that no one can be denied the promise that is America.
Her heart is full; her door is still golden, her future bright. She has arms big enough to comfort and strong enough to support, for the strength in her arms is the strength of her people. She will carry on in the eighties unafraid, unashamed, and unsurpassed.
In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is.
( RNC speech, August 23, 1984 )

  "A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist."
( Feb. 11, 1988 )

 "The govenment is not the solution, the government is the problem"

  "We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide."

  "Some may try and tell us that this is the end of an era. But what they overlook is that in America, every day is a new beginning and every sunset is merely the latest milestone on a voyage that never ends. For this is the land that has never become but is always in the act of becoming. Emerson was right: America is the Land of Tomorrow."

  "How can we not believe in the greatness of America? How can we not do what is right and needed to preserve this last best hope of man on Earth? After all our struggles to restore America, to revive confidence in our country, hope for our future -- after all our hard-won victories earned though the patience and courage of every citizen -- we cannot, must not and will not turn back. We will finish our job. How could we do less? We're Americans."

  "When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale."
( Republican National Convention, 1992 )

  "This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson. Well let me tell you something; I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine and Governor... You're no Thomas Jefferson!"
( Republican National Convention, 1992 )

  "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence."
( Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1970 )

  "It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."
( First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981 )

  "No arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
( First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981 )

  "Cures were developed for which there were no known diseases."
( Commenting on Congress and the federal budget, 1981 )

 "Please tell me you're Republicans."
( To surgeons as he entered the operating room, 1981 )

 "Mightn't it be better in those areas of high crime to arm the homeowner and the shopkeeper, teach him how to use his weapons and put the word out to the underworld that it is no longer totally safe to rob and murder?... One wonders indeed if the rising crime rate isn't due as much as anything to the criminal's instinctive knowledge that the average victim no longer has any means of self-protection... No one knows how many crimes are committed because the criminal knows he has a soft touch. No one knows how many stores have been let alone because the criminals knew them to be guarded by a man with a gun."

-Ronald Reagan, Guns & Ammo Magazine, 1975

Franklin D. Roosevelt

 "Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows"

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

 "Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them."

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

 "The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly." -Theodore Roosevelt

 "Our country offers the most wonderful example of democratic government on a giant scale that the world has never seen; and the peoples of the world are watching to see whether we succeed, or fail." -Theodore Roosevelt

  "To sit home and read one's favorite newspaper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what the evil men count upon the good men's doing." _Theodore Roosevelt

 "We should provide for every immigrant, by day-schools for the young and night-schools for the adults, the chance to leam English; and if after, say, five years he has not learned English, he should be sent back to the land from whence he came" — Theodore Roosevelt (New York Times, 9-10-17)

 "Never under any condition should this Nation look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. He should always be looked at primarily as a future citizen" —Theodore Roosevelt (Kansas City Star, 12-1-17)

 "We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than 50 years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. ... We cannot afford the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery." — Theodore Roosevelt

 "The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly, who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who, at the best, know the triumph of high achievement and who, at the worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." — Theodore Roosevelt

 "We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. ... There can be no divided allegiance here. ... We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile.... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people." -Theodore Roosevelt (Letter to American Defence Society, 1-3-19)

 "The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life." -Theodore Roosevelt