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I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

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
Happiest
Says
Least
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World

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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All we can do is to make the best of our friends, love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way what is bad.
Thomas Jefferson
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Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it.
Thomas Jefferson
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My religious reading has long been confined to the moral branch of religion, which is the same in all religions while in that branch which consists of dogmas, all differ[.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.
Thomas Jefferson
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A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of newspaper lies serves like headlands to correct our course. Indeed, my scepticism as to everything I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.
Thomas Jefferson
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If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
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I leave to others the sublime delights of riding in the storm, better pleased with sound sleep & a warmer berth below it encircled, with the society of neighbors, friends & fellow laborers of the earth rather than with spies & sycophants ... I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas Jefferson
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My passion strengthens daily to quit political turmoil, and retire into the bosom of my family, the only scene of sincere and purehappiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.
Thomas Jefferson
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If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press.
Thomas Jefferson
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Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
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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One imputation in particular has been repeated till it seems as if some at least believed it: that I am an enemy to commerce. They admit me a friend of agriculture, and suppose me an enemy to the only means of disposing of its produce.
Thomas Jefferson
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music, drawing, books, invention & exercise will be so many resources to you against ennui.
Thomas Jefferson
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Dependence leads to subservience.
Thomas Jefferson
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Never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many on their getting warm, becoming rude and shooting one another.
Thomas Jefferson
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Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.
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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The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us.
Thomas Jefferson