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I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.

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
Common
Fear
Sense
Play
Things
Never
Fairs
Fair
Wrong

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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We never repent of having eaten too little.
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Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
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In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.
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Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skinsand furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them.
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The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.
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By nature's law, man is at peace with man till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another as his enemy.
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To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
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I am entirely persuaded that the agitations of the public mind advance its powers, and that at every vibration between the points of liberty and despotism, something will be gained for the former. As men become better informed, their rulers must respect them the more.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.
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What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
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I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies
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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His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five points is ... a demon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin
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Taste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.
Thomas Jefferson
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No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
Thomas Jefferson
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Of publishing a book on religion, my dear sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. Of these there must be, at least, ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all wrong but his own.
Thomas Jefferson
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Whiskey claims to itself alone the exclusive office of sot-making.
Thomas Jefferson
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Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.
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I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else a legal tender.
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When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public.
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