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"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty... And what country can preserve its liberties if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

--Thomas Jefferson (letter to William S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787).
Reproduced in "Thomas Jefferson, a Biography in His Own Words", pub Newsweek Books.

"My idea is that we should be made one nation in every case concerning foreign affairs, and separate ones in whatever is merely domestic; that the Federal government should be organized into Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, as are the State governments, and some peaceable means of enforcement devised for the Federal head over the States."

--Thomas Jefferson ["Writing of Thomas Jefferson" pub by Taylor & Maury, Washington DC, 1854, quote II 248-49, from a letter to J. Blair, August 13, 1787. 

"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty -- so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator -- and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? 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. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but terrified of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree."

--Cesare Beccaria, AN ESSAY ON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS (1764).
This particular passage was so highly regarded by Thomas Jefferson that he copied it by hand into his personal notebook of great quotations.

"The capital and leading object of the constitution was to leave with the States all authorities which respected their own citizens only, and to transfer to the United States those which respected citizens of foreign or other States; to make us several as to ourselves, but one as to all others."

--Thomas Jefferson ["Writing of Thomas Jefferson" pub by Taylor & Maury, Washington DC, 1854, quote number VII 290-98, from correspondence with Judge William Johnson, June 12, 1823]

"With respect to our State and federal governments, I do not think their relations are correctly understood by foreigners. They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. To the State governments are reserved all legislative and administration, in affairs which concern their own citizens only, and to the federal government is given whatever concerns foreigners, or the citizens of the other States; these functions alone being made federal. The one is domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government; neither having control over the other, but within its own department."

--Thomas Jefferson ["Writing of Thomas Jefferson" pub by Taylor & Maury, Washington DC, 1854, quote number VII 355-61, from correspondence to Major John Cartwright, June 5, 1824.

"The constitutions of most of our states [and of the United States] assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."

--Thomas Jefferson

"... the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,' therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and entitled 'An Act in addition to the act entitled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,' as also the act passed by them on the -- day of June, 1798, entitled 'An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States,' (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory."

--Thomas Jefferson, in the Draft of the Kentucky Resolution, 1798

This is the classic Jefferson quote in which he succinctly states the constitutional limits on the powers of the central government to prosecute persons under criminal law for acts committed on state territory. He does not get into the "general legislative powers" of Congress over federal territories, which have been interpreted to allow broad criminal jurisdiction, but the Constitution clearly states that such jurisdiction extends only to territory not the territory of any state. The only other exception is a power to discipline military personnel, including for acts they might commit while on state territory. Federal "territory" does not include property owned in fee simple by the federal government that lies within state territory, nor property on which activities are otherwise subject to regulation as interstate commerce or for excise or import taxation, neither of which create "federal territory" unless the land has been ceded to the federal government by the state legislature, nor do the powers to regulate or tax provide authority for criminal penalties (deprivation of life or liberty), only for civil penalties (deprivation of property).

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him; every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him; and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions, and *the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right.* The trial of every law by one of these texts, would would lessen much labors of our legislators, and lighten equally our municipal codes."

--Thomas Jefferson, To Francis W. Gilmer, June 7, 1816--as quoted in Benson's "An Enemy Hath Done This"

"All, too will bear in mind this sacred principal, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority posses their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate which would be oppression."

--Thomas Jefferson (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801)

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

--Thomas Jefferson 

"Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may AGAIN rally and recall the people; they fix to for the people the principals of their political creed." [emphasis added]

--Thomas Jefferson

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

--Thomas Jefferson ("Notes on the State of Virginia", written in 1782, William Peded ed.; Chapel Hill Press, 1955, p162)

"Merchants love nobody."

--Thomas Jefferson: To John Langdon, 1785. 

"The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it."

--Thomas Jefferson 

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

--Thomas Jefferson (Notes, ibid, p147-149) 

"The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country when ever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so."

--Thomas Jefferson letter to Thomas Cooper (1814) 

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

--Thomas Jefferson (Notes, ibid p159-160) 

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

--Thomas Jefferson (Notes, ibid p159-160)

"The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, but that wall is a one directional wall; it keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1 Jan 1802, address to the Danbury Baptists

"The new Constitution has secured these [individual rights] in the Executive and Legislative departments: but not in the Judiciary. It should have established trials by the people themselves, that is to say, by jury."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1789

"In every country and in 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"

--Thomas Jefferson, 1814

"You seem... to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy... The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1820 

"...the Federal Judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing it's noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one... when all government... in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1821 

"At home, fellow citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property."

--Thomas Jefferson, 2nd inaugural address

"No [free] man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. 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, proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950) 

"No Freeman shall be debarred the use of arms in his own lands or tenements."

--Thomas Jefferson, from the Virginia Constitution, Third Draft

"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p.322

"Laws 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 Jefferson

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own persuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

--Thomas Jefferson (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801) 

"...judges should be withdrawn from the bench whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may, indeed, injure them in fame or fortune; but it saves the Republic..."

--Thomas Jefferson

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprize and independance to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."

--Thomas Jefferson (A letter to his nephew written while he was in Paris on August 19, 1785)

"Above all I hope that the education of the common people will be attended to so they won't forget the basic principles of freedom."

--Thomas Jefferson

"As for the right to suicide... if this is a "Christian Nation", then only God theoretically has the right to take a life. It's a touchy issue. I personally believe you have every right to suicide, but only if you succeed. Failures should be punished."

--Thomas Jefferson

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."

--Thomas Jefferson

"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

--Thomas Jefferson

"I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender."

--Thomas Jefferson

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared... We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude... The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public money. We are endeavoring to reduce the government to the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening the people..."

--Thomas Jefferson

"If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied."

--Thomas Jefferson

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."

--Thomas Jefferson

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want bread."

--Thomas Jefferson (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801)

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, He must approve the homage of Reason rather than that of blindfolded Fear."

--Thomas Jefferson

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"

--Thomas Jefferson 

"The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional, and what not,... would make the judiciary a despotic branch."

--Thomas Jefferson

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."

--Thomas Jefferson ("Statue of Religious Freedom", adopted by the State of Virginia in 1785)

"We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

--Thomas Jefferson

"If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it."

--Thomas Jefferson

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

--Thomas Jefferson