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[A] spirit of justice and friendly accomodation...is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations.

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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All things here appear to me to trudge on in one and the same round: we rise in the morning that we may eat breakfast, dinner andsupper and to bed again that we may get up the next morning and do the same: so that you never saw two peas more alike than our yesterday and to-day.
Thomas Jefferson
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The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?
Thomas Jefferson
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Without books, I would certainly die.
Thomas Jefferson
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While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent and open outrages of law and patriotism as dishonorable as they are injurious
Thomas Jefferson
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Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than that of face and stature.
Thomas Jefferson
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While old men feel sensibly enough their own advance in years, they do not sufficiently recollect it in those whom they have seenyoung.
Thomas Jefferson
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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
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Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them.
Thomas Jefferson
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In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
Thomas Jefferson
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As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.
Thomas Jefferson
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Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
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[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired] This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects
Thomas Jefferson
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Music furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life.
Thomas Jefferson
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Circumstances sometimes require, that rights the most unquestionable should be advanced with delicacy.
Thomas Jefferson
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No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.
Thomas Jefferson
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An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
Thomas Jefferson
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A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
Thomas Jefferson
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I leave to others the sublime delights of riding in the storm, better pleased with sound sleep & a warmer berth below it encircled, with the society of neighbors, friends & fellow laborers of the earth rather than with spies & sycophants ... I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office.
Thomas Jefferson
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I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Thomas Jefferson