Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

It may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please[...] The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished [...] in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. [...] Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.