This Man Was Not A Democrat
A Collection of Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Edited By
Robert R. Taylor
Introduction
The online library of Congress displays a few pitiful non -inspiring or non- controversial quotes of Jefferson. Here is the real Jefferson.
In Jefferson’s time there were two major parties. One based on the philosophy of Madison , believing in a strong central government controlling the states and the masses. The other was based on the philosophy of Jefferson promoting a weak central and state government and believing in individual freedom and the spirit of enterprise.
The Modern Democrat party claims to be the party of Jefferson and marches him out each election as the historical source of their party philosophy. The Modern Democrat party believes in “Big Government”, “Big Taxes”, “The redistribution of wealth”, “The confiscation of private property”, “Gun Control”, “Thought Control” (in the form of “political correctness) and a host of other “ controls” that smack of socialism, fascism and communism.
The development of the Modern Democrat party can be traced directly to the pandering of politicians to the radical left and it’s foreign ideologies in the 1960s.
These politicians in turn were a direct link and spin off from Henry Wallace and his Progressive party of socialist and communist in the 1948 Elections. Mc Govern was a delegate to the Progressive party convention in 1948.
The purpose of this paper is to lay to rest any thought that Thomas Jefferson was a Democrat in the modern sense of the party.
This work is composed entirely of quotes of Thomas Jefferson and it is left to the reader to decide what party Jefferson would support were he alive today.
To those whose criticism is; “the quotes are out of context” I say, there is no context. They are in alphabetical order.
To those who say that I did not provide primary source data; I say, you are right, but prove they are not accurate quotes if you can!
To those who say this paper is not a complete collection of Jefferson; again I say, you are right. It was not meant to be. Go collect your own quotes and disprove my argument that Jefferson is not a Modern Democrat.
He would, in my opinion would completely reject the Democrat party and it’s current socialist Marxists ideals.
Robert R. Taylor
Ft Worth, Texas
Jan, 2003
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
All the world would be Christian if they were taught the pure Gospel of Christ!
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
Thomas Jefferson
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence 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
At last now you can be what the old cannot recall and the young long for in dreams, yet still include them all.
Thomas Jefferson
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.
Thomas Jefferson
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
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.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson
How much have cost us the evils that never happened!
Thomas Jefferson
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
Thomas Jefferson
I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies
Thomas Jefferson
I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
Thomas Jefferson
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
Thomas Jefferson
I cannot live without books.
Thomas Jefferson
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
Thomas Jefferson
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Thomas Jefferson
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Thomas Jefferson
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas Jefferson
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
Thomas Jefferson
I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson
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.
Thomas Jefferson
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 their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
I learn with great concern that [one] portion of our frontier so interesting, so important, and so exposed, should be so entirely unprovided with common fire-arms. I did not suppose any part of the United States so destitute of what is considered as among the first necessaries of a farm-house
Thomas Jefferson
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson
In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Thomas Jefferson
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
Thomas Jefferson
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
Thomas Jefferson
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.
Thomas Jefferson
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
Thomas Jefferson
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
Thomas Jefferson
My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
Thomas Jefferson
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Thomas Jefferson
No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
Thomas Jefferson
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Thomas Jefferson
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them
Thomas Jefferson
One man with courage is a majority.
Thomas Jefferson
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
Thomas Jefferson
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation [of power] first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Thomas Jefferson
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
Thomas Jefferson
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
Thomas Jefferson
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
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? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson
Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men, governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity? But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature
Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Thomas Jefferson
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Thomas Jefferson
The following [addition to the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me: The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the [United States] with foreign nations.
Thomas Jefferson
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
Thomas Jefferson
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson
The parties of Whig and Tory are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles and Liberals. The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature. The healthy, strong and bold cherishes them, and is formed a Whig by nature.
Thomas Jefferson
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson
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
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Thomas Jefferson
There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
Tradition is but a meteor, which, if it once falls, cannot be rekindled. Memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. But written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has passed away, is again bright in its proper station. So books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten, but when opened again, will again impart instruction.
Thomas Jefferson
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
Thomas Jefferson
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Thomas Jefferson
We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can never be safe till this is done.
Thomas Jefferson
We never repent of having eaten too little.
Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thomas Jefferson
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
Thomas Jefferson
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Thomas Jefferson
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
Thomas Jefferson
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
Thomas Jefferson
While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent and open outrages of law and patriotism as dishonorable as they are injurious
Thomas Jefferson
Your friends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own, without thinking that you should follow theirs. Thus, in fact, they all think themselves wiser than you, whatever they may say.
Thomas Jefferson