Anyone familiar with the Bloggersen knows of my infatuations with our third president. Here are a few quotes from the man himself:
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
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.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
