In questions of power let no more be heard of confidence in man but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

Thomas Jefferson
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Constitutional democracy, you see, is no romantic notion. It's our defense against ourselves, the one foe who might defeat us. - Bill Moyers

  2. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform... - Thomas Jefferson

  3. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor; — let every man remember that to violate the law,... - Abraham Lincoln

  4. [I]n my own case at least I feel my professional need for freedom of speech and expression prejudices me toward a government whose constitution guarantees it. - John Updike

  5. If their social institutions were abhorrent, their unwritten constitution bordered upon the absurd. The absolutist monarchs of the ancient kingdoms of Amara looked with detestation at the Shazarian constitutional monarchy. Yet this was no time to demonstrate loathing of the upstart nation; condescension could wait... - A.H. Septimius

More Quotes By Thomas Jefferson
  1. I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power...

  2. Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

  3. Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.

  4. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

  5. There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.

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