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If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.

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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It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.
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Establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war.
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Nothing was or is farther from my intentions, than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I have only expressed doubt.
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The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
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The construction applied . . . to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power . . . ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.
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[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.
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It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.
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So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? — Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.
Thomas Jefferson
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While prudence will endeavor to avoid this issue of war, bravery will prepare to meet it.
Thomas Jefferson
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War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
Thomas Jefferson
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If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.
Thomas Jefferson
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Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .
Thomas Jefferson
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Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
Thomas Jefferson
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My passion strengthens daily to quit political turmoil, and retire into the bosom of my family, the only scene of sincere and purehappiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order.
Thomas Jefferson
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The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.
Thomas Jefferson
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Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Thomas Jefferson
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I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old.
Thomas Jefferson
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No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.
Thomas Jefferson
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The concentrating of powers in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.
Thomas Jefferson