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Power is not alluring to pure minds.

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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Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.
Thomas Jefferson
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No generation has a right to contract debts greater than can be paid off during the course of its own existence.
Thomas Jefferson
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The Christian god is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.
Thomas Jefferson
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The objects of this primary education . . . would be . . . to form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend.
Thomas Jefferson
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Take painsto write a neat round, plain hand, and you will find it a great convenience through life to write a small and compact hand as well as a fair and legible one.
Thomas Jefferson
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Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Thomas Jefferson
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The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
Thomas Jefferson
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The idea of creating a national bank I do not concur in, because it seems now decided that Congress has not that power (although I sincerely wish they had it exclusively), and because I think there is already a vast redundancy rather than a scarcity of paper medium.
Thomas Jefferson
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I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
Thomas Jefferson
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That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.
Thomas Jefferson
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The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Thomas Jefferson
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Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
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Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Thomas Jefferson
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no people can be both ignorant and free.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make, be the difference of price what it may.
Thomas Jefferson
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Travelling. ... when men of sober age travel, they gather knowlege which they may apply usefully for their country
Thomas Jefferson
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The following [addition to the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me: The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the [United States] with foreign nations.
Thomas Jefferson
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We do not mean to count or weigh our contributions by any standard other than that of our abilities.
Thomas Jefferson
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Planting is one of my great amusements, and even of those things which can only be for posterity, for a Septuagenary has no right to count on any thing but annuals.
Thomas Jefferson
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The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. (Jesus) pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the regions of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.
Thomas Jefferson