Thomas Jefferson on banks

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

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

by Henry David Thoreau

I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best

which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up

to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally

amounts to this, which also I believe–”That government is

best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared

for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments

are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. Continue reading