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It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.

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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I am already sensible of decay in the power of walking, and find my memory not so faithful as it used to be. This may be partly owing to the incessant current of new matter flowing constantly through it but I ascribe to years their share in it also.
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All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution.
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.
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I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gaycapital [Paris].
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The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged.
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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.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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An hereditary aristocracy... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.
Thomas Jefferson
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It would not be for the public good to have [a majority in Congress of one party] greater [than] two to one.
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No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.
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besides the comfort of knowlege, every science is auxiliary to every other.
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[We should be] determined... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government... in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.
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Power is not alluring to pure minds.
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As government grows, freedom recedes.
Thomas Jefferson
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The dead should not rule the living
Thomas Jefferson
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Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap.
Thomas Jefferson
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Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
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No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
Thomas Jefferson
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Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.
Thomas Jefferson
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The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.
Thomas Jefferson