"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." Dr. Thomas Sowell
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." -- Thomas Jefferson
"If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels ... to govern him?" --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801
"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." -- Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive." -- Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." -- Thomas Jefferson
"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 12/20/1787
"[If government have] a right of demanding ad libitum and of taxing us themselves to the full amount of their demand if we do not comply with it, [this would leave] us without anything we can call property." -- Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Lord North, 1775. Papers, 1:233
"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." -- Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kerchevall, 1816
"Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1799
"Most bad government results from too much government." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them..." -- Mark Twain
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