Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jeffersonwas an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He was elected the second Vice President of the United States, serving under John Adams and in 1800 was elected the third President. Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, which motivated American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth13 April 1743
CityShadwell, VA
CountryUnited States of America
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
On every question of Construction (of the Constitution) lets us carry our-selves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, 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.
What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
From the nature of things, every society must at all times possess within itself the sovereign powers of legislation.
Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.
Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are what they should be - burdens to those appointed to them which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring them intense labor and great private loss.
Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
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.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.
The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion of principle but that of gain