Letter to the Marquis de Lafayette
08/14/1784
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force.
A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.