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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.

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
Taste
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Art
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World
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Subjects
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Let common sense and common honesty have fair play, and they will soon set things to rights.
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The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived. To avoid this they should be instructed to a certain degree.
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I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
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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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The power of making war often prevents it, and in our case would give efficacy to our desire of peace.
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Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
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A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.
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There is no King, who, with sufficient force, is not always ready to make himself absolute.
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The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven. I can scarcely expect bread.
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The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
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While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?
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Should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.
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Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
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[We should be] determined... to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government... in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.
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life is of no value but as it brings gratifications. among the most valuable of these is rational society. it informs the mind, sweetens the temper, chears our spirits, and promotes health.
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What we learn to do, we learn by doing.
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[F]alsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
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He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
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The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.
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A mind always employed is always happy.
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