evidence: The Facebook page Cold Dead Hands shared an image claiming that founding father Thomas Jefferson said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have." There is no record of Jefferson ever saying this. The quote seems to have first appeared in the 1950s, over 100 years after his death, and has been repeated by other political figures such as President Gerald Ford. The quote has been so often misattributed to Jefferson that the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, curated by his estate at Monticello, has an entry dedicated to this "spurious quotation."