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So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

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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Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose are to provide for defense by all those means to which our resources are competent.
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We prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form and to any people whatever.
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Nothing betrays imbecility so much as the being insensible of it.
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It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterwards. The fortune of our lives therefore depends on employing well the short period of our youth.
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He who lights his [candle] at mine receives light without darkening me.
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The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
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By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy.
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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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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.
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Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
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The most uninformed mind with a healthy body is happier than the wisest valetudinarian.
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Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.
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The superiority of chocolate (hot chocolate), both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain.
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I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures.
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Students of reading, writing and common arithmetick . . . Graecian [Greek], Roman, English and American history . . . should be rendered . . . worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens.
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
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No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.
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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
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I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are. There is scarcely an evil known in these countries, which may not be traced to their king, as its source, nor a good, which is not derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them.
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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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