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Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.

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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Despotism
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Unremitting
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.
Thomas Jefferson
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Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
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The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.
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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.
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The variety of opinions leads to questions. Questions lead to truth.
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If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country [Italy] its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.
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I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.
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Law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
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The law for religious freedom... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.
Thomas Jefferson
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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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The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.
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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If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi... in war, they will kill some of us we shall destroy them all.
Thomas Jefferson
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Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.
Thomas Jefferson
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The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land.
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Trial by jury is part of the bright constellation which leads to peace, liberty and safety.
Thomas Jefferson
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And, in general, that branch which is to act ultimately and without appeal on any law is the rightful expositor of the validity of the law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other coordinate authorities.
Thomas Jefferson
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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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Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.
Thomas Jefferson
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Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
Thomas Jefferson