Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.
Thomas JeffersonThe liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?
Thomas JeffersonLaws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Thomas JeffersonDependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson