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It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

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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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Liberty
Takes
Even
Good
Men
Time
Persuade
Libertarian
Progress

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I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.
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When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.
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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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The plough is to the farmer what the wand is to the sorcerer. Its effect is really like sorcery.
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In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.
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I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.
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God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion... We have had thirteen States independent for eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half, for each State. What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion.
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It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead.
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It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.
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Men of energy of character must have enemies because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect.
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There is no King, who, with sufficient force, is not always ready to make himself absolute.
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I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man.
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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.
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To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement
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It must be observed that our revenues are raised almost wholly on imported goods.
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It is left... to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.
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Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people.
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The same political parties which now agitiate the US have existed through all time. And in fact the terms of whig and tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution and mind of different individuals.
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The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.
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Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
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