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When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

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
Cryptographer
Diplomat
Farmer
Inventor
Jurist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Growing
Evils
Evil
Voting
Lost
Republic
Remedying
Every
Corruption
Correction
Useless
Corrupted
Possibility
Removing
Principles
Corrections
Either
Restoring

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I have done for my country and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.
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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.
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Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than that of face and stature.
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Having always observed that public works are much less advantageously managed than the same are by private hands, I have thought it better for the public to go to market for whatever it wants which is to be found there for there competition brings it down to the minimum value.
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Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people.
Thomas Jefferson
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We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.
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What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.... [Instead] reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?
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It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
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To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.
Thomas Jefferson
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War is not the best engine for us to resort to nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.
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Every male citizen of the commonwealth, liable to taxes or to militia duty in any county, shall have a right to vote for representatives for that county to the legislature.
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A good neighbor is a very desireable thing.
Thomas Jefferson
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In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.
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The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.
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No society can make a perpetual constitution... The earth belongs always to the living generation.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have sworn upon the altar of god.
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Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
Thomas Jefferson
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Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion.
Thomas Jefferson
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Those who have once got an ascendancy, and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage.
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[All religious sects] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies in which they live.
Thomas Jefferson