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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

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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The construction applied . . . to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power . . . ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.
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The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam [to a carriage on wheels] will make a great change in the situation of man.
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It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.
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Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.
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The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
Thomas Jefferson
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The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.
Thomas Jefferson
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Action will delineate and define you.
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With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.
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If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter
Thomas Jefferson
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Experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can when we cannot do all we would wish.
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Scenes are now to take place as will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself, to the dangers of a paper medium abandoned to the discretion of avarice and of swindlers.
Thomas Jefferson
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If science produces no better fruits than tyranny... I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighbouring savages are.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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One man with courage is a majority.
Thomas Jefferson
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And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately and without appeal on any law is the rightful expositor of the validity of the law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other coordinate authorities.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.
Thomas Jefferson
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The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy].
Thomas Jefferson
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It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.
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The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
Thomas Jefferson