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We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.

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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Bank-paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation to whom it belongs.
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Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory.
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You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.
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In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.
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I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.
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My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
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We must endeavor to forget our former love for them [the British] and to hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
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We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .
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It is every Americans' right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself.
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It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end.
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It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
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The best commentary on the principles of government which has ever been written.
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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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Those are governed best who are governed least.
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One generation cannot bind another.
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Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.
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Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
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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.
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Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
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Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.
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