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Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.
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
Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter endowed with will...Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson
No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.
Thomas Jefferson
Let those flatter who fear it is not an American art .
Thomas Jefferson
There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.
Thomas Jefferson
Drawing ... is an innocent & engaging amusement, often useful, and a qualification not to be neglected in one who is to become a mother & an instructor.
Thomas Jefferson
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
Thomas Jefferson
Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.
Thomas Jefferson
I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.
Thomas Jefferson
What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.
Thomas Jefferson
Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.
Thomas Jefferson
If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will, in fact, be for life, and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance.
Thomas Jefferson
They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.
Thomas Jefferson
My religious reading has long been confined to the moral branch of religion, which is the same in all religions while in that branch which consists of dogmas, all differ[.
Thomas Jefferson
Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
Thomas Jefferson
That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.
Thomas Jefferson
It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.
Thomas Jefferson
The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
Thomas Jefferson
Music furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us through life.
Thomas Jefferson
There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
Thomas Jefferson