Thomas Jefferson

Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

No man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and daily loss of friends.

. . . whenever any form of government becomes destructive . . . it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it...

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

The sheep are happier of themselves than under the care of a wolf.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.