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If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter

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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Let those flatter who fear it is not an American art .
Thomas Jefferson
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If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
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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Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is in their interest to go to war.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.
Thomas Jefferson
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Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.
Thomas Jefferson
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When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.
Thomas Jefferson
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An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
Thomas Jefferson
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Experience having long taught me the reasonableness of mutual sacrifices of opinion among those who are to act together for any common object, and the expediency of doing what good we can when we cannot do all we would wish.
Thomas Jefferson
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One man with courage is a majority.
Thomas Jefferson
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Female education ... has occupied my attention so far only as the education of my own daughters ... I thought it essential to give them a solid education which might enable them, when become mothers, to educate their own daughters, and even to direct the course for sons, should their fathers be.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things but they would have been done by others some of them, perhaps, a little better.
Thomas Jefferson
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We prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form and to any people whatever.
Thomas Jefferson
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A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. In order to flourish, the tree of Liberty needs the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ministers and merchants love nobody.
Thomas Jefferson
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Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United States its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations.
Thomas Jefferson
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The lamp of war is kindled here, not to be extinguished but by torrents of blood.
Thomas Jefferson