Quotes by Thomas Jefferson
god forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion . . . the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to
time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure.
writing to William Smith (1755-1816) appearing to welcome Shays' Rebellion
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276
The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.
to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491
The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers.
to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632
What county can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance.
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
