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We do not mean to count or weigh our contributions by any standard other than that of our abilities.

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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Unmerited abuse wounds, while unmerited praise has not the power to heal.
Thomas Jefferson
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We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
Thomas Jefferson
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I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson
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[T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it's power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of theirvirtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!
Thomas Jefferson
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Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.
Thomas Jefferson
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The mass of the citizens is the safest depositary of their own rights.
Thomas Jefferson
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Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.
Thomas Jefferson
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If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
Thomas Jefferson
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Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.
Thomas Jefferson
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Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow.
Thomas Jefferson
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The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.
Thomas Jefferson
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Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter endowed with will...Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson
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The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson
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I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.
Thomas Jefferson
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Do not be too severe upon the errors of the people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.
Thomas Jefferson
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On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
Thomas Jefferson
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We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by reflection.
Thomas Jefferson