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Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

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
Form
Evident
Government
Destructive
Pursuit
Secession
Right
Whenever
Abolish
Life
Becomes
Institute
People
Liberty
Alter
Happiness
Sovereignty
Ends
Declaration

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
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I shall rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery.
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I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.
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While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent and open outrages of law and patriotism as dishonorable as they are injurious
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Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state
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I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. He is the most unfit man I know for such a place.
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... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.
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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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It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate.
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letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilisation.
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Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.
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The declaration of rights [Bill of Rights] is, like all other human blessings, alloyed with some inconveniences and not accomplishing fully its object. But the good in this instance vastly outweighs the evil.
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Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.
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Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.
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the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.
Thomas Jefferson
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Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.
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The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.
Thomas Jefferson
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What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.
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If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
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None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army
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