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I believe in both a creative and personal God, a divinely ordered universe, that man has an innate moral sense, and that Jesus was a great moral teacher, perhaps the greatest the world has witnessed.

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
Jesus
Ordered
Universe
Innate
Sense
Perhaps
Great
Personal
Believe
Teacher
Men
Greatest
World
Creative
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Witnessed

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.... [Instead] reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?
Thomas Jefferson
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I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they are. There is scarcely an evil known in these countries, which may not be traced to their king, as its source, nor a good, which is not derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them.
Thomas Jefferson
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I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.
Thomas Jefferson
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Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.
Thomas Jefferson
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No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness.
Thomas Jefferson
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Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.
Thomas Jefferson
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At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about a public debt being a public blessing that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams.
Thomas Jefferson
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That paper money has some advantages is admitted. But that its abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property, cannot be denied.
Thomas Jefferson
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By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.
Thomas Jefferson
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Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Thomas Jefferson
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As government grows, freedom recedes.
Thomas Jefferson
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Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.
Thomas Jefferson
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I discharge every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition Law, because I considered, and now consider, that law to be a nullity as absolute and palpable as if Congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image.
Thomas Jefferson
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To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.
Thomas Jefferson
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The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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In a virtuous and free state, no rewards can be so pleasing to sensible minds, as those which include the approbation of our fellow citizens. My great pain is, lest my poor endeavours should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.
Thomas Jefferson
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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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A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of newspaper lies serves like headlands to correct our course. Indeed, my scepticism as to everything I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.
Thomas Jefferson