Thomas Jefferson: 
  
Being one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and among the first  
Americans to have to defend the newly won liberties of Americans from  
encroachment makes Thomas Jefferson one of the most qualified people to ask  
about politics and many other issues.  
source: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/libertarians/ask-thomas-jefferson/jefferson.html
  
Jefferson's quotations: 


The purpose of government:  
  
     A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from  
     injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to  
     regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and  
     shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.  
     This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to  
     close the circle of our felicity. ---First Inaugural Addres.  


The best kind of government:  
  
     That government is best which governs the least, because its  
     people discipline themselves.  


Rebellion: 

     The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain  
     occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. -- Letter to  
     Abigail Adams, Paris, Feb. 22, 1787  


Freedom of thought:  
  
     The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he  
     neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his  
     health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the  
     state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or  
     sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from  
     ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.  
  
     It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods  
     or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.  


Political parties:  
  
     I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of  
     any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in  
     politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for  
     myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and  
     moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I  
     would not go there at all. -- Letter To Francis Hopkinson, Paris  
     Mar. 13, 1789  


Divine guidance from Washington:  
  
     If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap,  
     we would soon want for bread.  


Tyranny:  
  
     We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created  
     equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain  
     unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the  
     pursuit of Happiness.  That to secure these rights, Governments  
     are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the  
     consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government  
     becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People  
     to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,  
     laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its  
     powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect  
     their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that  
     Governments long established should not be changed for light and  
     transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that  
     mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,  
     than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they  
     are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,  
     pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce  
     them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their  
     duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for  
     their future security.  -- Declaration of Independence  


Constitutional interpretation: 

     On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us  
     carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was  
     adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and  
     instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text,  
     or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it  
     was passed. -- Letter To Justice William Johnson, Monticello,  
     June 12, 1823  


Gun control: 
  
     No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The  
     strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and  
     bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against  
     tyranny in government.  


Lust: 

     We rarely repent of having eaten too little.  


Fiscal policy: 

     I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public  
     debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we  
     must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make  
     our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and  
     servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the  
     labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they  
     will be happy.  


Voting: 
  
     ...a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a  
     mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword  
     of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided... -- First  
     Inaugural Addres  


Activism: 

     Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of  
     body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.  
     -- Letter to P. S. Dupont de Nemours, Poplar Forest, April 24,  
     1816  


What price freedom: 
  
     The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the  
     blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. --  
     Letter to William S. Smith, Paris, Nov. 13, 1787