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Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
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Diplomat
Farmer
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Ambition
Subservience
Tools
Germ
Design
Prepares
Virtue
Germs
Liberty
Designs
Government
Begets
Dependence
Fit
Venality

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Victory and defeat are each of the same price.
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Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.
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The power of making war often prevents it, and in our case would give efficacy to our desire of peace.
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The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam [to a carriage on wheels] will make a great change in the situation of man.
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I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box.
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It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.
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Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.
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I never before knew the full value of trees....What would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full grown.
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Slavery is an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such, but I own that I nor any other man has any immediate solution to the problem.
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History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume and knowing it, to defeat its views.
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In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.
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The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.
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The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government
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The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.
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The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
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I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
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Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
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I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowlege among the people. no other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness.
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An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.
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If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter
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