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If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.

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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The happiness of society depends so much on preventing party spirit from infecting the common intercourse of life, that nothing should be spared to harmonize and amalgamate the two parties in social circles.
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.
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I know nothing more important to inculcate into the minds of young people than the wisdom, the honor, and the blessed comfort of living within their income.
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Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.
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It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.
Thomas Jefferson
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A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.
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Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.
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No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.
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[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.
Thomas Jefferson
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Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.
Thomas Jefferson
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The excellence of every government is its adaptation to the state of those to be governed by it.
Thomas Jefferson
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[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.
Thomas Jefferson
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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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The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
Thomas Jefferson
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The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.
Thomas Jefferson
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If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform.
Thomas Jefferson
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Taste cannot be controlled by law.
Thomas Jefferson
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Establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war.
Thomas Jefferson
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Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our ancestors ... were laborers, not lawyers.
Thomas Jefferson