No society can make a perpetual constitution... The earth belongs always to the living generation. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Every constitution..., and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years [a generation]. If it be enforced longer, it is… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
I have been long sensible that while I was endeavoring to render our country the greatest of all services, that of regenerating… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
The reflections that the boys of this age are to be the men of the next; that they should be prepared to… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living":… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Big banks are more dangerous than standing armies, and the practice of borrowing and spending money to be paid back by the… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
the boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the sole guardians of the principles we… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.-Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
The earth belongs to the living. No man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied or the persons who succeed… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
When I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Having labored faithfully in establishing the right of self-government, we see in the rising generation, into whose hands it is passing, that… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living. .… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place,… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
It is to them I look, to the rising generation, and not to the one now in power, for these great reformations… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the same piece… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
[States and the Federal government are] coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole... The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
“Perceiving the order of nature to be that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue, I am willing to hope it… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them,… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
Knowledge is power...knowled ge is safety...knowle dge is happiness. — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image
There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government,… — Thomas Jefferson Copy Share Image