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If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.

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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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Everything
Obstacles
Drug
Common
Hope
Priestcraft
War
Surmounted
Sense
Suffice
Else
Bigotry
May
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Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
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No man has greater confidence than I have in the spirit of the people, to a rational extent. Whatever they can, they will.
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[A] spirit of justice and friendly accomodation...is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations.
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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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In a virtuous and free state, no rewards can be so pleasing to sensible minds, as those which include the approbation of our fellow citizens. My great pain is, lest my poor endeavours should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.
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I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.
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If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.
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I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man.
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I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away.
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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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No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
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I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances.
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The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.
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The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.
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To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.
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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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To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.
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A pirate spreading misery and ruin over the face of the ocean
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We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
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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.
Thomas Jefferson