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Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.

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
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According
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None
World
Perfect
Human
Humans
Must
Viewed
Every
Imperfection
Good
Desert

More quotes by 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.
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Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.
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Drawing ... is an innocent & engaging amusement, often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to become a mother & an instructor.
Thomas Jefferson
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Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.
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Everything is useful which contributes to fix the principles and practices of virtue.
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It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead.
Thomas Jefferson
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On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
Thomas Jefferson
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Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
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If science produces no better fruits than tyranny... I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighbouring savages are.
Thomas Jefferson
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So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? — Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.
Thomas Jefferson
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Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses.
Thomas Jefferson
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To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.
Thomas Jefferson
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Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is Mortifying to suppose it possible that a people able and zealous to contend with the Enemy should be reduced to fold their Arms for want of the means of defence yet no resources that we know of, ensure us against this event.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have not observed mens honesty to increase with their riches.
Thomas Jefferson
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Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap.
Thomas Jefferson
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Trial by jury is part of that bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
Thomas Jefferson
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If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will, in fact, be for life, and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance.
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Self-love . . . is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.
Thomas Jefferson