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Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

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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Whenever
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I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old.
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I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.
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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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the field of knolege is the common property of all mankind
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That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.
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Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced me that this would be very mischievous.
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I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gaycapital [Paris].
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The sheep are happier of themselves, than under the care of wolves.
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An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy.
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The best commentary on the principles of government which has ever been written.
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We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists
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A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
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In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.
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How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the earth were it not for misgovernment and a diversion of his energies to selfish interests.
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Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.
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A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.
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If the question [before justices of the peace] relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact.
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Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
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The first object of human association [is] the full improvement of their condition.
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All authority belongs to the people.
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