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The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe, the sinks of voluntary misery.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
Architect
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Diplomat
Farmer
Inventor
Jurist
Lawyer
Philosopher
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Desire
Heads
Strong
Misery
Nature
General
Hands
Europe
Allurements
Live
Cities
Dissipation
Great
Turn
Sinks
Make
Turns
Voluntary
Men
Rather
Threaten

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If you have any duty which must be done, and it seems disagreeable, do it promptly and have it over.
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The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.
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I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.
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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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The concentrating of powers in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.
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Slavery is an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such, but I own that I nor any other man has any immediate solution to the problem.
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The man who loves his country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be divorced for it, can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off.
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No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.
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Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
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...We are all Federalists,and we are all Republicans.
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No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.
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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.
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Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.
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What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
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I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances.
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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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I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.
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When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.
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By... [selecting] the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated.
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To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.
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