You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.
Thomas JeffersonFor themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have they have right to hold.
Thomas JeffersonIf I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off.
Thomas JeffersonShould things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights.
Thomas JeffersonLaws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.
Thomas JeffersonFrom breakfast, or noon at the latest, to dinner, I am mostly on horseback, Attending to My Farm or other concerns, which I find healthful to my body, mind, and affairs.
Thomas JeffersonIn every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes.
Thomas Jefferson