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History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation, are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us.
Thomas Jefferson
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Do not neglect your music. It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you.
Thomas Jefferson
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The ordinary affairs of a nation offer little difficulty to a person of any experience.
Thomas Jefferson
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
Thomas Jefferson
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If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection.
Thomas Jefferson
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I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.
Thomas Jefferson
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If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.
Thomas Jefferson
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... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.
Thomas Jefferson
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I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
Thomas Jefferson
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Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.
Thomas Jefferson
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A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Thomas Jefferson
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The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights
Thomas Jefferson
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Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.
Thomas Jefferson
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My passion strengthens daily to quit political turmoil, and retire into the bosom of my family, the only scene of sincere and purehappiness.
Thomas Jefferson