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Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.

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
Foundation
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Common
Sense
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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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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Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.
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Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
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It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.
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The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
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No man has greater confidence than I have in the spirit of the people, to a rational extent. Whatever they can, they will.
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If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
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Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.
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Hemp is one of the greatest, most important substances of our nation
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If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press.
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Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society.
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Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state
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We think, in America, that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government, as far as they are capable of exercising it, and that this is the only way to ensure a long continued and honest administration of its powers.
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On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
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It is always better to have no ideas than false ones to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
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Everything is useful which contributes to fix the principles and practices of virtue.
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Paper money is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.
Thomas Jefferson
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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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Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.
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No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.
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