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Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error... They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only... If [free enquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged.

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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When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
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The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.
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Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.
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He alone who walks strict and upright, and who, in matters of opinion, will be contented that others should be as free as himself and acquiesce when his opinion is freely overruled, will attain his object in the end.
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Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap.
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Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do.
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Gaming corrupts our disposition and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.
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... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.
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I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.
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It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.
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Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.
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But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?
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A lottery is a salutary instrument and a tax... laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize.
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He, who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.
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Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
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What we learn to do, we learn by doing.
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The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government
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Ministers and merchants love nobody.
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Although our prospect is peace, our policy and purpose are to provide for defense by all those means to which our resources are competent.
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I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
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