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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.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Limited
Confidence
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Founded
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Jealousy

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.
Thomas Jefferson
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We never repent of having eaten too little.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.
Thomas Jefferson
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We need a revolution every 20 years just to keep government honest.
Thomas Jefferson
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A mind always employed is always happy.
Thomas Jefferson
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The idea of creating a national bank I do not concur in, because it seems now decided that Congress has not that power (although I sincerely wish they had it exclusively), and because I think there is already a vast redundancy rather than a scarcity of paper medium.
Thomas Jefferson
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A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.
Thomas Jefferson
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Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end.
Thomas Jefferson
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It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.
Thomas Jefferson
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When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles every other correction is either useless or a new evil.
Thomas Jefferson
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An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
Thomas Jefferson
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It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation, even of that which has injured us most.
Thomas Jefferson
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letters are not the first, but the last step in the progression from barbarism to civilisation.
Thomas Jefferson
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Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.
Thomas Jefferson
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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