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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

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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
Worse
Hold
Rather
Smooth
Better
Rough
Take
Bitter
Always
Handle
Things
Gratitude
Grateful

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An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State.
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Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.
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The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
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An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
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Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.
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Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.
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I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude
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Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will collections of men by that of their majority for the law of the majority is the natural law of every society of men.
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Now I will avow, that I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial, mundane system.
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Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.
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Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.
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Unmerited abuse wounds, while unmerited praise has not the power to heal.
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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.
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I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.
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The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.
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The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
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Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
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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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Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.
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No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.
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