RobMoney$
06-28-2009, 12:46 PM
I've compiled some quotes from Thomas Jefferson.
I'm not asking if you would vote for him personally because he lived in a time very different from what we experience today, but I am interested if you'd consider his views to be conservative or liberal when applied to today's political enviorment.
I would like to also leave out opinions about his personal traits and life.
I happen to think he's neither a typical con. or liberal, he's just a boarderline political genius. His opinions are completely independant of either side of the political scale, which is something I strive to be like.
And what I mean by that is that he has his opinions regardless if they're considered liberal or conservative, he just seems to try to go by what he believes is right.
Sometimes that's the liberal POV, and other times it's the Conservative.
Here's some of my favorite quotes. So many of which apply perfectly to today's political problems:
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
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.
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent
is body without mind.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
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
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
I cannot live without books.
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause
for withdrawing from a friend.
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
One man with courage is a majority.
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Very interesting quote right here,
Jeffersons' warning in 1802 on the banking industry:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
I'm not asking if you would vote for him personally because he lived in a time very different from what we experience today, but I am interested if you'd consider his views to be conservative or liberal when applied to today's political enviorment.
I would like to also leave out opinions about his personal traits and life.
I happen to think he's neither a typical con. or liberal, he's just a boarderline political genius. His opinions are completely independant of either side of the political scale, which is something I strive to be like.
And what I mean by that is that he has his opinions regardless if they're considered liberal or conservative, he just seems to try to go by what he believes is right.
Sometimes that's the liberal POV, and other times it's the Conservative.
Here's some of my favorite quotes. So many of which apply perfectly to today's political problems:
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
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.
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent
is body without mind.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
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
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
I cannot live without books.
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause
for withdrawing from a friend.
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
One man with courage is a majority.
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Very interesting quote right here,
Jeffersons' warning in 1802 on the banking industry:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.