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A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
--Thomas Jefferson
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas.
I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the
people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servility crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat,
and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. 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 blindfolded fear.
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 felicity.
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices
will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than
it would have done in their correction by a good education. I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, to many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. A little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it. When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, a hundred.
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail. Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Be polite to all, but intimate with few. I cannot live without books. |
