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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

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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the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
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A mind always employed is always happy.
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The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government in all places where they may lawfully go.
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.
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It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.
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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.
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It is better to have no ideas than false ones.
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If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
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If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
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Man is not made for the State but the State for man and it derives its just powers only from the consent of the governed.
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But of all the views of this law [universal education] none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.
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The art of life is the art of avoiding pain and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.
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If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the State to be troubled with it.
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We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .
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Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
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If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong.
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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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There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.
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The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.
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An acre of the best ground for hemp, is to be selected and sewn in hemp and be kept for a permanent hemp patch.
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