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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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Jurist
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Neither
Hold
Safely
Justice
Wolf
Self
Preservation
Scale
Scales
Slavery
Ears

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Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.
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Religions are all alike- founded upon fables and mythologies.
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It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.
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In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.
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Those who wish to be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be.
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I have examined all of the known superstitions of the world and i do not find our superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all founded on fables and mythology. Christianity has made one-half of the world fools and the other half Hypocrites
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When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.
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It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.
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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 hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.
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No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.
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The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.
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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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The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
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Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society.
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I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
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The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.
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Error is to be pitied and pardoned: it is the weakness of human nature. But vice is a foul blemish, not pardonable in any character.
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When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
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The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.
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