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I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.

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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When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state
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Every honest man will suppose honest acts to flow from honest principles, and the rogues may rail without intermission.
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Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .
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I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.
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When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.
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It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.
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It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.
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Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.
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The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.
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I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.
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Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
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A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
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The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate.
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I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless.
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The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.
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An occasional insurrection will not weigh against the inconveniences of a government of force, such as are monarchies and aristocracies.
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The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?
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With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.
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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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It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
Thomas Jefferson