Over the years I’ve grown more and more interested in our founding fathers. I find the ideals and concepts as compelling then as they are today, and the importance of them.
A lot of the core concepts come from Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the United States of America.
Thomas Jefferson is a very important key to our history, one whom is often quoted but not given his due credit. He’s one of four on Mount Rushmore, for eff’s sake.
- Noteworthy of President Thomas Jefferson:
- Wrote The Declaration of Independence
- Louisiana Purchase
- Established US Military Academy at West Point, NY
- Abolished Slave Trade
- Founded the University of Virginia
So, here are some quotes attributed to Jefferson and anecdote’s about him.
- John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: “This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
- When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. – Thomas Jefferson
- The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson
- It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. – Thomas Jefferson
- 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. – Thomas Jefferson
- My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. – Thomas Jefferson
- No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. – Thomas Jefferson
- The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. – Thomas Jefferson
- The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. – Thomas Jefferson
- To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson
- I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property “ until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. – Thomas Jefferson
- I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. – Thomas Jefferson
- The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson
- A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise 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. – Thomas Jefferson
- To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with public debt. – Thomas Jefferson
- Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated. – Thomas Jefferson
- I place economy among the first and most important of republic virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. – Thomas Jefferson
