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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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Circumstances sometimes require, that rights the most unquestionable should be advanced with delicacy.
Thomas Jefferson
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Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice.
Thomas Jefferson
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War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
Thomas Jefferson
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Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
Thomas Jefferson
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Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided.
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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We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson
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Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
Thomas Jefferson
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What we learn to do, we learn by doing.
Thomas Jefferson
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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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Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (adminstrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.
Thomas Jefferson
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Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
Thomas Jefferson
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Motherhood is the keystone of the arch of matrimonial happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
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What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the general government.
Thomas Jefferson
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We wish the happiness and prosperity of every nation.
Thomas Jefferson
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We see the wisdom of Solon's remark, that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear.
Thomas Jefferson
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But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Thomas Jefferson
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The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.
Thomas Jefferson
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[F]alsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
Thomas Jefferson
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The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government
Thomas Jefferson