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We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

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
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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Stock dealers and banking companies, by the aid of a paper system, are enriching themselves to the ruin of our country, and swaying the government by their possession of the printing presses, which their wealth commands and by any other means, not always honorable to the character of our countrymen.
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An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.
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There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded...2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last.
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[A] spirit of justice and friendly accomodation...is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations.
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The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land.
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Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.
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Perfection in wisdom, as well as in integrity, is neither required nor expected in these agents (public servants). It belongs not to man. The wise know too well their weaknesses to assume infallibility and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows.
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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.
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The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.
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The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism.
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Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
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I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
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But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?
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[T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it's power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of theirvirtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!
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Do not neglect your music. It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you.
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Chemistry is yet, indeed, a mere embryon. Its principles are contested experiments seem contradictory their subjects are so minute as to escape our senses and their result too fallacious to satisfy the mind. It is probably an age too soon to propose the establishment of a system.
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Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.
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I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances.
Thomas Jefferson
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As government grows, freedom recedes.
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The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson