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I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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I do verily believe that if the principle were to prevail of a common law being in force in the United States (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the state governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government), it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.
Thomas Jefferson
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The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.
Thomas Jefferson
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The only true corrective of Constitutional abuses is education.
Thomas Jefferson
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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
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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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The President is bound to stop at the limits prescribed by our Constitution and law to the authorities in his hands, [and this] would apply in an occasion of peace as well as war.
Thomas Jefferson
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[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.
Thomas Jefferson
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[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.
Thomas Jefferson
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The power of making war often prevents it, and in our case would give efficacy to our desire of peace.
Thomas Jefferson
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Take painsto write a neat round, plain hand, and you will find it a great convenience through life to write a small and compact hand as well as a fair and legible one.
Thomas Jefferson
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There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
Thomas Jefferson
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Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
Thomas Jefferson
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Our wish is that...[there be] maintained that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.
Thomas Jefferson
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It has been thought that the people are not competent electors of judges learned in the law. But I do not know this to be true, and, if doubtful, we should follow principle.
Thomas Jefferson
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Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.
Thomas Jefferson
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Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
Thomas Jefferson
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[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired] This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects
Thomas Jefferson
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Bank-paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Thomas Jefferson
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If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter
Thomas Jefferson