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

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The happiness of society depends so much on preventing party spirit from infecting the common intercourse of life, that nothing should be spared to harmonize and amalgamate the two parties in social circles.
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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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It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.
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A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.
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What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
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To be really useful, we must keep pace with the state of society, and not dishearten it by attempts at what its population, means, or occupations will fail in attempting.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
Thomas Jefferson
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That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.
Thomas Jefferson
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The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
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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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When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
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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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One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier.
Thomas Jefferson
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Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.
Thomas Jefferson
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Knowledge is power...knowled ge is safety...knowle dge is happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.
Thomas Jefferson
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I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.
Thomas Jefferson
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Free men do not ask permission to bear arms
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If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter
Thomas Jefferson