Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Wherever there is repression of the individual, wherever there are acts contrary to the nature of the individual, there can be no greater crime.

As long as the superstition that people should obey unjust laws exists, so long will slavery exist

Under dictatorship, the people in prison are always superior to the people who put them there.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.

The majority are not morally free to become a tyranny and destroy the rights of minorities.

Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

Every kind and degree of evil of which mankind are susceptible may be inflicted on them by their government.

Turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.

Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.

Security is like liberty in that many are the crimes committed in its name.

In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

Despots and democratic majorities are drunk with power.

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

There are unjust laws as there are unjust men.

Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.

We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends.

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Where the law ends tyranny begins.

Yes, citizens, Iturbide was a traitor, a hypocrite and an impious man who destroyed the assembly in which the people had deposited their sovereignty in order to appropriate it all to himself

The malignity and inhumanity of the Greek military authorities are undisguised.

Repression or oppression never yet succeeded in crushing the truth or redressing a wrong.

In all ages wherever a tyrant has shown himself he has always found some willing judge to clothe that tyranny in the robes of legality.

Power over men is itself a satisfaction, besides providing opportunity to better one's circumstances with a minimum of exertion. Hence, the lust for power increases with its enjoyment and restraint is added to restraint. The government instituted to prevent men from transgressing one another's equal rights thus tends to become a transgressor of the rights of all. The injustice is far more oppressive than anyone man can do unto another, and the interests of freedom can be served only by restraint of government.