So Much Wisdom - So Little Space

I receive so many famous quotes, sent to me by readers on a regular basis, that I have decided these are much better commentary than most op-eds. I will therefore, from time to time, post a series of them. Be sure to scroll down for the section which is wholly devoted to Thomas Jefferson quotes:

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a Congress. — John Adams

If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. — Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself. — Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. — Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. — George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. — G. Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. — James Bovard

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. — Douglas Casey

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. — P.J. O’Rourke

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. — Frederic Bastiat

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. — Ronald Reagan

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. — Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free. — P.J. O’Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. — Voltaire

Just because you do not take an interest in politics
doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. –
Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. — Mark Twain

Talk is cheap… except when Congress does it. –Anonymous

The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. — Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. — Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. — Herbert Spencer

There is no distinctly native American criminal class… save Congress. — Mark Twain

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. — Gerald Ford

“[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.” –George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 14 June 1778

Thomas Jefferson Quotes:

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

–Thomas Jefferson

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”

- Thomas Jefferson

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

- Thomas Jefferson

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

- Thomas Jefferson

“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.”

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 5 May 1787

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”

–Thomas Jefferson

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.”

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Spencer Roane, 9 March 1821

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, 12 July 1816

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”

–Thomas Jefferson , A letter to Thomas Cooper, 29 November 1802

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”

–Thomas Jefferson

“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”

–Thomas Jefferson

“To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.”
–Thomas Jefferson

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit. ”

–Thomas Jefferson