Quotes about Independence

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.

I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more. ( Letter to John Banister, Jr., June 19, 1787)

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.

A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.

No people who are ignorant can be truly free.

I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it

We seem not to perceive that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independent nation is to another.

Liberty is the parent of science and of virtue, and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.