Thomas Jefferson

"With all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing, or that ever did exist." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:227

"If we find our government in all its branches rushing headlong... into the arms of monarchy, if we find them violating our dearest rights, the trial by jury, the freedom of the press, the freedom of opinion, civil or religious, or opening on our peace of mind or personal safety the sluices of terrorism, if we see them raising standing armies, when the absence of all other danger points to these as the sole objects on which they are to be employed, then indeed let us withdraw and call the nation to its tents. But while our functionaries are wise, and honest, and vigilant, let us move compactly under their guidance, and we have nothing to fear. Things may here and there go a little wrong. It is not in their power to prevent it. But all will be right in the end, though not perhaps by the shortest means." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:29

"That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied. --Thomas Jefferson to Josephus B. Stuart, 1817. ME 15:113

"It is a cruel thought, that, when we feel ourselves standing on the firmest ground in every respect, the cursed arts of our secret enemies, combining with other causes, should effect, by depreciating our money, what the open arms of a powerful enemy could not." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, 1779. ME 4:298, Papers 2:298

"I have been happy... in believing that... whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1797. ME 9:384

"Private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:40

"What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate. And I do believe that if the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free (and it is blasphemy to believe it), that the secret will be found to be in the making himself the depository of the powers respecting himself, so far as he is competent to them, and delegating only what is beyond his competence by a synthetical process, to higher and higher orders of functionaries, so as to trust fewer and fewer powers in proportion as the trustees become more and more oligarchical." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1816. ME 14:421

"No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1814.

"The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:165

"It is indeed an animating thought that while we are securing the rights of ourselves and posterity, we are pointing out the way to struggling nations who wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Address, 1790. ME 8:7, Papers 16:225

"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents... There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:396

(so go start a Numerica card game club)