Thomas Jefferson Quotes

We stand up and proudly proclaim that Washington is not our caretaker and we reject a state, in Margaret Thatcher's words, a state that takes too much from us to do too much for us.

We can restore liberty by taking government out of our bedrooms, our bloodstreams, our bladders, our brains, our businesses and our back-pockets.

Great quantities of fertile land are standing idle in our State, while at the same time great numbers of men and women and children are going hungry. We intend to start today to end that condition, and to put the idle people on the idle land to produce food for themselves

Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he be free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family.

The fifth freedom, the Freedom of Individual Enterprise, is the keystone of the arch on which the other Four Freedoms rest. This is what freedom means.

When once an Indian sees that his food is secure, he does not care what the chief or any one else says.

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

America has to stand up and decide if we want to be a socialist nation or if we're going to be a free nation.

Since no one but you can know what's best for you, government control can't make your life better.

The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.

Generally I'm against regulation.

The government has no business telling an individual what kind of light bulb to buy.

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

Whenever regulation increases, personal freedom decreases.

Economic freedom is an end in itself …. Economic freedom is an indispensable means towards the achievement of political freedom.

Economic freedom tends to lead to political freedom.

A wise and frugal Government shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

I do not believe in government ownership of anything which can with propriety be left in private hands, and in particular I should most strenuously object to government ownership of railroads. In my judgment public ownership of railroads is highly undesirable and would probably in this country entail far-reaching disaster.

The private sector, when left alone, can make better decisions than government can.

I'm offended by any suggestion that we have to beat groups of people over the head with an economic club [higher taxes] to keep them from exercising their freedom of choice in the marketplace.

Population must increase rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil.

Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society.

I started out by viewing the marketplace as a cruel place, where you need intervention by government and lawyers to protect people. But after watching the regulators work, I have come to believe that markets are magical and the best protectors of the consumer. It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market.

Any government intrusion into the economy deters the alleged beneficiaries from voicing their views or participating in civic life.

Everywhere I travel around my home state of Wyoming - but also around the country - I continue to hear, 'How can Washington make us buy something we don't want to buy, a product? They can't tell us to buy breakfast cereal or something else - how can they do that?'