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To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement

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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I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.
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I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender.
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I have no ambition to govern men it is a painful and thankless office.
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Ambition is a tricky little animal to tame. It is very skillful at concealing itself from its master.
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Of distinction by birth or badge, [Americans] had no more idea than they had of the mode of existence in the moon or planets. They had heard only that there were such, and knew that they must be wrong.
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Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.
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You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.
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The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived. To avoid this they should be instructed to a certain degree.
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That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.
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One generation cannot bind another.
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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.
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The truth is, that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words.
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I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
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Taste cannot be controlled by law.
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When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.
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The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.
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One imputation in particular has been repeated till it seems as if some at least believed it: that I am an enemy to commerce. They admit me a friend of agriculture, and suppose me an enemy to the only means of disposing of its produce.
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Congress has scarcely any thing to employ them, and complain that the place [Washington, D.C.] is remarkably dull.
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Dependence leads to subservience.
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No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations.
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