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The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

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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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?
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Do not write me studied letters but ramble as you please.
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The moral sense, or conscience, is as much part of a man as his leg or arm. It is given to all in a stronger or weaker degree.. It may be strengthened by exercise.
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Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
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In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.
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We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.
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I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances.
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Earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend divine services.
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Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.
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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
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Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
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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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For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.
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the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
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France, freed from that monster, Bonaparte, must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune give a preference to some other one, and the first choice of all not under those ties.
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They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.
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I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
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God has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own.
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Shake hands with Pain, give greeting unto Grief, Those angels in disguise, and thy glad soul From height to height, from star to shining star, Shall climb and claim blest immortality.
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The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.
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