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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.

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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It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.
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I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
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Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author
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The lamp of war is kindled here, not to be extinguished but by torrents of blood.
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
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You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.
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The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
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I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.
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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.
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[I]n Great-Britain it is said that their constitution relies on the house of commons for honesty, and the lords for wisdom whichwould be a rational reliance if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary.
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I could say much about politics, our only entertainment here, but you would not care a fig about that.
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The law for religious freedom... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.
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Honesty and interest are as intimately connected in the public as in the private code of morality.
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But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.
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Newspapers . . . serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.
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Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree.
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War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
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A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.
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The difficulty is no longer to find candidates for the offices, but offices for the candidates.
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I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.
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