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With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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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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And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately and without appeal on any law is the rightful expositor of the validity of the law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other coordinate authorities.
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I have wished to see chemistry applied to domestic objects, to malting, for instance, brewing, making cider, to fermentation and distillation generally, to the making of bread, butter, cheese, soap, to the incubation of eggs, &c.
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I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired. Though to be candid, there are some who have too much good sense to esteem such monkey-like animals as these, in whose formation, as the saying is, the tailors and barbers go halves with God Almighty.
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I feel... an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may, at length, reach even the extremes of society: beggars and kings.
Thomas Jefferson
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To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.
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It is better to have no ideas than false ones.
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Don't spend your money till you have it.
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I have not observed mens honesty to increase with their riches.
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Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
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The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
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When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.
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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.
Thomas Jefferson
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What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
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Motherhood is the keystone of the arch of matrimonial happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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The art of life is the art of avoiding pain and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.
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in the spring he will attend your botanical course. his natural turn is very strongly to the objects of your two courses of lectures, and I hope you will have reason to be contended with his capacity & character.
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Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory.
Thomas Jefferson
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To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson