Thomas Jefferson Citizens Quotations

Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory.

The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty ... students perusal of the sacred volume will make us better citizens.

I believe from what I have lately seen that we should be substantially safe were our Citizens Armed, but we have not as many Arms as we have Enemies in the State.

The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government in all places where they may lawfully go.

It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.

I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in their times.

An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.

It is highly interesting to our country, and it is the duty of its functionaries, to provide that every citizen in it should receive an education proportioned to the condition and pursuits of his life.

The mass of our citizens may be divided into two classes -- the laboring and the learned. The laboring will need the first grade of education to qualify them for their pursuits and duties; the learned will need it as a foundation for further acquirements.

A community of small farmers... land property owners, will be the only assurance that the freedom our republic offers will be guaranteed to each and every citizen.

To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.

We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.

For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.

In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.... Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged.... Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them.

The eyes of our citizens are not sufficiently open to the true cause of our distress. They ascribe them to everything but their true cause, the banking system

A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.

The system of banking have[for]ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens.

I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.

I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.

The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.

The mass of the citizens is the safest depositary of their own rights.

Laws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.

Every male citizen of the commonwealth, liable to taxes or to militia duty in any county, shall have a right to vote for representatives for that county to the legislature.

Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.

I acknowledge that such a debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave-not even of a very large portion of it.

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.

I wish to see this beverage become common instead of the whiskey which kills sone-third of our citizens and ruins their families.

A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.

The best principles of our republic secure to all its citizens a perfect equality of rights.

Sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure

Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.

I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may.

Cultivators of the earth are the most virtuous and independent citizens.

Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.