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A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.

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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The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.
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Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature.
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I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.
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The only security of all is in a free press.
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The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.
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Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
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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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My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
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An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.
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I hold it certain that to open the doors of truth and to fortify the habit of testing everything by reason are the most effectual manacles we can rivet on the hands of our successors to prevent their manacling the people with their own consent.
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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
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History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume and knowing it, to defeat its views.
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Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
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The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.
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I never before knew the full value of trees....What would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full grown.
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My principles, and those always received by the republicans, do not admit to removing any person from office merely for a difference of political opinion. Malversations in office, and the exerting of official influence to control the freedom of election are good causes for removal.
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The happiest hours of my life have been spent in the flow of affection among friends.
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He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
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I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.
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We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by reflection.
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