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If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest.
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[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.
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... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.
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Those who wish to be ignorant and free, believe in something that never was and never shall be.
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If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection.
Thomas Jefferson
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I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.
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To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government as a barrier against foreign foes... is [one of the] functions of the General Government on which [our citizens] have a right to call.
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The ocean ... like the air, is the common birth-right of mankind.
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Of all the cankers of human happiness none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful an influence, as indolence.
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Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society.
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Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.
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The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty...
Thomas Jefferson
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History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume and knowing it, to defeat its views.
Thomas Jefferson
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I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.
Thomas Jefferson
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While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.
Thomas Jefferson
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An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy.
Thomas Jefferson
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He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it the second time.
Thomas Jefferson
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Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
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Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
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