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The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.
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
Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.
Thomas Jefferson
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
Thomas Jefferson
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson
While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.
Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.
Thomas Jefferson
Every man has a commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.
Thomas Jefferson
The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
Thomas Jefferson
Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will collections of men by that of their majority for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.
Thomas Jefferson
It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also.
Thomas Jefferson
Where strictness of grammar does not weaken expression, it should be attended to. . . . But where, by small grammatical negligences, the energy of an idea is condensed, or a word stands for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor in contempt.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.
Thomas Jefferson
I could think of no worse example for nations abroad, who for the first time were trying to put free electoral procedures into effect, than that of the United States wrangling over the results of our presidential election, and even suggesting that the presidency itself could be stolen by thievery at the ballot box.
Thomas Jefferson
Drawing ... is an innocent & engaging amusement, often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to become a mother & an instructor.
Thomas Jefferson
music, drawing, books, invention & exercise will be so many resources to you against ennui.
Thomas Jefferson
Many are the exercises of power reserved to the States wherein a uniformity of proceeding would be advantageous to all. Such are quarantines, health laws, regulations of the press, banking institutions, training militia, etc., etc.
Thomas Jefferson
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
Thomas Jefferson
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
Thomas Jefferson
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson