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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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Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.
Thomas Jefferson
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During the late war I had an infallible rule for deciding what Great Britain would do on every occasion. It was, to consider what they ought to do, and to take the reverse of that as what they would assuredly do, and I can say with truth that I was never deceived.
Thomas Jefferson
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But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
Thomas Jefferson
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I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson
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Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.
Thomas Jefferson
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When a uniform exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies,you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity in such a case, retaliation becomes an act of benevolence.
Thomas Jefferson
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While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?
Thomas Jefferson
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Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree.
Thomas Jefferson
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The art of life is the art of avoiding pain and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.
Thomas Jefferson
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With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.
Thomas Jefferson
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So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.
Thomas Jefferson
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It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.
Thomas Jefferson
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He who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson
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The fortune of our lives depends on employing well the short period of our youth.
Thomas Jefferson
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The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.
Thomas Jefferson
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Neither believe nor reject any thing because any other person, or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven.
Thomas Jefferson
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We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
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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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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Question with boldness even the existence of a God because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson