Thomas Jefferson

I see Tuesday's election of Barack Obama as some form of rebellion. The people of this country, myself included, are tired of the Washington way of Politics. Whether I agree with canidates chosen on Tuesday or not, the people of this country want change and Tuesday was a clear indicator that the people expect change to happen. We are tired of seeing our leaders argue on end without resolution while we the people suffer. As I walked my dog out in the cold early yesterday morning I was thinking about the majority's choice for the next President and trying to label what it means in simple terms. I came up with a famous quote from Thomas Jefferson that was on the back of a Spring Break shirt from my high school days:

"A little rebellion every now and then is a good thing"

A great quote!

I decided to search other Jefferson quotes and was impressed to find out how much of his advice and thoughts still ring true. It's amazing, that one of our greatest leaders, a man who died in 1826, has left us with so much insight that one could use the his ideas as the blue print for how to effectly run our everyday lives as well as our country.

Here are few Jefferson quotes that caught my eye:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

"I'm a great believer in luck, I find the harder I work the more I have of it"

"Nothing gives one person so much advantage of another as to always remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances"

"The spirit of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object"

"Advertisements....contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper"

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

"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."

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."

"Every generation needs a new revolution."

"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend."

I could go on......