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Our wish is that...[there be] maintained that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.

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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Farmer
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Men
Equal
Industry
Results
State
Wish
Unequal
Father
Maintained
States
Fathers
Every
Property

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Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.
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[States and the Federal government are] coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole... The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government.
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Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.
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I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.
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The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!
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An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State.
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The variety of opinions leads to questions. Questions lead to truth.
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I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude
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History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume and knowing it, to defeat its views.
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Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
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An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens.
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No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.
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Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter endowed with will...Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
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Music...This is the favorite passion of my soul.
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The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.
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Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.
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One had rather have no opinion than a false one.
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Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.
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I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
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The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.
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