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No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.

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
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Best
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter endowed with will...Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
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A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order.
Thomas Jefferson
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Men as well as rivers grow crooked by following the path of least resistance.
Thomas Jefferson
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Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
Thomas Jefferson
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Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.
Thomas Jefferson
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A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of newspaper lies serves like headlands to correct our course. Indeed, my scepticism as to everything I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.
Thomas Jefferson
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The precepts of philosophy and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of actions only. (Jesus) pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man, erected his tribunal in the regions of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head.
Thomas Jefferson
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Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson
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Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have always said that a studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.
Thomas Jefferson
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That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.
Thomas Jefferson
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There is no justification for taking away individuals' freedom in the guise of public safety.
Thomas Jefferson
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Congress has scarcely any thing to employ them, and complain that the place [Washington, D.C.] is remarkably dull.
Thomas Jefferson
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I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.
Thomas Jefferson
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Dependence begets subservience and paves the way for tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
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The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.
Thomas Jefferson
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Nothing is so engaging as the little domestic cares into which you appear to be entering, and as to reading it is useful for onlyfilling up the chinks of more useful and healthy occupations.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.
Thomas Jefferson
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Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
Thomas Jefferson