Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Thomas JeffersonI had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast . . . would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it.
Thomas JeffersonPeople generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace.
Thomas JeffersonWith nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.
Thomas JeffersonThe contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.
Thomas JeffersonTurning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.
Thomas Jefferson