Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I feel that the majority of people should decide for themselves what kind of government they want.

[There is no] right of Congress ... to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it. The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil to adopt it.... Whenever you put a limitation upon the right of any people to decide what laws they want, you have destroyed the fundamental principle of self-government.

I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people.

The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself.

By nature, every individual has the right to govern himself; and governments, whether founded on majorities or minorities, must derive their right from the assent, expressed or implied, of the governed,, and be subject to such limitations as they may impose.

The only moral Foundation of Government is the Consent of the People. But to what an Extent Shall We carry this Principle? Shall We Say, that every Individual of the Community, old and young, male and female, as well as rich and poor, must consent, expressly to every Act of Legislation? No, you will say. This is impossible. How then does the Right arise in the Majority to govern the Minority, against their Will? Whence arises the Right of the Men to govern Women, without their Consent? Whence the Right of the old to bind the Young, without theirs.

No people must be forced under a sovereignty under which it does not wish to live.

The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself.

The people, have chosen to be governed under such and such principles. They have not chosen to be governed or proposed to submit upon any other.

Civil liberty is the power of a civil society or state to govern itself by its own discretion or by laws of its own making, without being subject to the impositions of any power in appointing and directing which the collective body of the people have no concern and over which they have no control

The United States supports the idea that every people should have the right to make a free choice as to the kind of government they want.

The Egyptian people have their own free will and the Army and the police are there to implement that will.

I believe that sovereignty is the twin sister of democracy. If there's no sovereignty, there's no democracy.

The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

Liberty means more to me than life itself.

I would like to state that my personal opinions are that the people of every country should decide by themselves what kind of government they want.

The important matter is freedom. When the people choose what they want, it is good for them and for us.

Our Constitution does not profess to have been established simply by the majority, but by 'the people' - the minority as much as the majority.

We believe democracy cannot be imposed from outside in any society. Democracy is the expression of a sovereign people.

Voting is the foundational act that breathes life into the principle of the consent of the governed.

Government itself is founded upon the great doctrine of the consent of the governed, and has its cornerstone in the memorable principle that men are endowed with inalienable rights.

We need to give the Iraqis a chance to build their own future. It should be in their hands. It must be in their hands. That is what democracy is all about. We can teach it, we can explain it, but they must want it enough to make it work for them.

The core idea that underlies all of our democratic states, the core political idea, is this idea that it's not that one person is the sovereign; it's that all of the people are sovereign.

The nation is formed through the law of nature alone. Government stems from the will of nation. The nation stands before all things and is the source of all things. Its will is always law. Above it and before it is but the law of nature alone. By virtue of its very existence, the nation is all things that it may be. The nation cannot surrender its right to a tyrant.

No Province shall be transferred from one Government to another without the consent by plebiscite or otherwise of the population of such Province.