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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 deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender.
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Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. ...I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
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I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies
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The variety of opinions leads to questions. Questions lead to truth.
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Earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend divine services.
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I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
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Delay is preferable to error.
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The following [addition to the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me: The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the [United States] with foreign nations.
Thomas Jefferson
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I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man.
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Men possessing minds of the first order and who have had opportunities of being known and of acquiring the general confidence do not abound in any country beyond the wants of the country.
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If science produces no better fruits than tyranny... I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighbouring savages are.
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It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.
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He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
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The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error.
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It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.
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There is no King, who, with sufficient force, is not always ready to make himself absolute.
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Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.
Thomas Jefferson
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What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.
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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Rejecting all organs of informationbut my senses, I rid myself of the Pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations hyperphysical and antiphysical so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind.
Thomas Jefferson