Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Not necessarily my favorite founding father, but often wise despite being inconsistent personally:

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state. (any 2nd amendment doubts about the citizens, not just a militia, being armed)
Thomas Jefferson

Every generation needs a new revolution. (Timely, and not just in a fashionable or rhetorical sense)
Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. (Trust our leaders for...?)
Thomas Jefferson

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.(Johnson County War???)
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.
Thomas Jefferson 

I know of 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 their discretion.
Thomas Jefferson 

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson 

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Thomas Jefferson