Law Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.

— Thomas Jefferson

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

— Thomas Jefferson

Although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice.

— Thomas Jefferson

Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep.

— Thomas Jefferson

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

— Thomas Jefferson

The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.

— Thomas Jefferson

Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.

— Thomas Jefferson

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

— Thomas Jefferson

Every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should…

— Thomas Jefferson

Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.

— Thomas Jefferson

Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law.

— Thomas Jefferson

All... natural rights may be abridged or modified in [their] exercise by law.

— Thomas Jefferson

An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.

— Thomas Jefferson

He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in…

— Thomas Jefferson

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

— Thomas Jefferson

That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.

— Thomas Jefferson

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do…

— Thomas Jefferson

Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our…

— Thomas Jefferson

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the…

— Thomas Jefferson

It has been thought that the people are not competent electors of judges learned in the law. But I do not know…

— Thomas Jefferson

And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately and without appeal on any law is the rightful expositor of the…

— Thomas Jefferson

... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name…

— Thomas Jefferson

the study of the law is useful in a variety of points of view. it qualifies a man to be useful to…

— Thomas Jefferson

I discharge every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition Law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be…

— Thomas Jefferson

A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place,…

— Thomas Jefferson

A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not combine their uses on the…

— Thomas Jefferson

MORAL LAW, Evidence of.- Man has been subjected by his Creator to the moral law, of which his feelings, or conscience as…

— Thomas Jefferson

The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he…

— Thomas Jefferson

I will now add what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the…

— Thomas Jefferson

It astonishes me to find... [that so many] of our countrymen... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to…

— Thomas Jefferson

If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free…

— Thomas Jefferson

Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to…

— Thomas Jefferson

It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all. It is agreed…

— Thomas Jefferson

Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the…

— Thomas Jefferson

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or…

— Thomas Jefferson

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with…

— Thomas Jefferson

“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”

— Thomas Jefferson

the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

— Thomas Jefferson

Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.

— Thomas Jefferson

The juries are our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.

— Thomas Jefferson