Thomas Jefferson

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

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.

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.