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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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Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
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Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United States its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations.
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I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality.
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We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.
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If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
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It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.
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The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven. I can scarcely expect bread.
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The sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but what they reject also.
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The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies, and falsehoods.
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The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!
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Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.
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If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will, in fact, be for life, and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance.
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How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
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We are sensible of the duty and expediency of submitting our opinions to the will of the majority, and can wait with patience till they get right if they happen to be at any time wrong.
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The sheep are happier of themselves, than under the care of wolves.
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I believe the states can best govern our home concerns, and the general government our foreign ones.
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Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
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We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by reflection.
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It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation, even of that which has injured us most.
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To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.
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