"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."
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."
"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."
"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."
"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security."
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
"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."
"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."
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
"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."
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."
"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."
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
"History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is."
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force."
"Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism."
"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."
"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."
"Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
"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."
"I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."
"The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But times and truth dissipated the delusion, and opened their eyes."
"We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."
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