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The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.

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
Men
Charter
Declaration
Independence
Rights

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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in the spring he will attend your botanical course. his natural turn is very strongly to the objects of your two courses of lectures, and I hope you will have reason to be contended with his capacity & character.
Thomas Jefferson
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You have never by a word or a deed given me one moment's uneasiness on the contrary I have felt perpetual gratitude to heaven forhaving given me, in you, a source of so much pure and unmixed happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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I believe from what I have lately seen that we should be substantially safe were our Citizens Armed, but we have not as many Arms as we have Enemies in the State.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
Thomas Jefferson
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A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.
Thomas Jefferson
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We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.
Thomas Jefferson
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Those who don’t read the newspapers are better off than those who do insofar as those who know nothing are better off than those whose heads are filled with half-truths and lies.
Thomas Jefferson
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A lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature. The healthy, strong and bold cherishes them, and is formed a Whig by nature.
Thomas Jefferson
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What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.... [Instead] reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?
Thomas Jefferson
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That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson
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The colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe. While Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, all other countries give it to the latter.
Thomas Jefferson
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Men of energy of character must have enemies because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect.
Thomas Jefferson
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Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.
Thomas Jefferson
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The dead should not rule the living
Thomas Jefferson
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We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by reflection.
Thomas Jefferson
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[T]he people seem to have deposited the monarchical and taken up the republican government with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.
Thomas Jefferson
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I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old.
Thomas Jefferson
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We generally learn languages for the benefit of reading the books written in them
Thomas Jefferson