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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
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Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched?
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The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.
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May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.
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Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.
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But of all the views of this law [universal education] none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.
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I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.
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Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.
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It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.
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When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
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I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired. Though to be candid, there are some who have too much good sense to esteem such monkey-like animals as these, in whose formation, as the saying is, the tailors and barbers go halves with God Almighty.
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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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A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.
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Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety.
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That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.
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I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.
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In a virtuous and free state, no rewards can be so pleasing to sensible minds, as those which include the approbation of our fellow citizens. My great pain is, lest my poor endeavours should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.
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Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.
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It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.
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All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.
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