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We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

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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Diplomat
Farmer
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Jurist
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Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Scales
Slavery
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Neither
Hold
Safely
Justice
Wolf
Self
Preservation
Scale

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The uniform tenor of a man's life furnishes better evidence of what he has said or done on any particular occasion than the word of any enemy.
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We are sensible of the duty and expediency of submitting our opinions to the will of the majority, and can wait with patience till they get right if they happen to be at any time wrong.
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I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.
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I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.
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If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection.
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Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.
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I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid and I find myself much the happier.
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We need a revolution every 20 years just to keep government honest.
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Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.
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He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
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But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
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The physician is happy in the attachment of the families in which he practices. All think he has saved one of them, and he finds himself everywhere a welcome guest, a home in every house.
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I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. He is the most unfit man I know for such a place.
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I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.
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If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves.
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Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.
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Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people.
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