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The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.
Thomas Jefferson
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Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.
Thomas Jefferson
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The expedition of Messrs. Lewis & Clarke for exploring the river Missouri, & the best communication from that to the Pacific ocean, has had all the success which could have been expected.
Thomas Jefferson
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Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under protection of habeas corpus and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
Thomas Jefferson
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He alone who walks strict and upright, and who, in matters of opinion, will be contented that others should be as free as himself and acquiesce when his opinion is freely overruled, will attain his object in the end.
Thomas Jefferson
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I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Thomas Jefferson
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Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.
Thomas Jefferson
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I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
Thomas Jefferson
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Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.
Thomas Jefferson
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When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Thomas Jefferson
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Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.
Thomas Jefferson
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Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. ...I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
Thomas Jefferson
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The objects of this primary education . . . would be . . . to form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend.
Thomas Jefferson
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If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi... in war, they will kill some of us we shall destroy them all.
Thomas Jefferson
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From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
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Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson
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I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have been happy . . . in believing that . . . whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators.
Thomas Jefferson