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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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The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in.
Thomas Jefferson
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Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another.
Thomas Jefferson
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On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar.
Thomas Jefferson
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The patient, treated on the fashionable theory, sometimes gets well in spite of the medicine.
Thomas Jefferson
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If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country [Italy] its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.
Thomas Jefferson
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We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
Thomas Jefferson
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I never before knew the full value of trees. Under them I breakfast, dine, write, read and receive my company.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.
Thomas Jefferson
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At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about a public debt being a public blessing that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams.
Thomas Jefferson
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No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
Thomas Jefferson
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The issue for patents for new discovers has given a spring to invention beyond my conception.
Thomas Jefferson
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Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.
Thomas Jefferson
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And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately and without appeal on any law is the rightful expositor of the validity of the law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other coordinate authorities.
Thomas Jefferson
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It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.
Thomas Jefferson
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Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
Thomas Jefferson
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The declaration of rights [Bill of Rights] is, like all other human blessings, alloyed with some inconveniences and not accomplishing fully its object. But the good in this instance vastly outweighs the evil.
Thomas Jefferson
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The constitution of the United States is the result of the collected wisdom of our country.
Thomas Jefferson
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The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged.
Thomas Jefferson