Deconstructing The News

Thomas Jefferson

• A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
• I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
• My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
• The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
• To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
• There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.