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When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public.

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.
Thomas Jefferson
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But of all the views of this law [universal education] none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.
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Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .
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Health is the requisite after morality
Thomas Jefferson
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I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts.
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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I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Thomas Jefferson
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There is no King, who, with sufficient force, is not always ready to make himself absolute.
Thomas Jefferson
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It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
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A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.
Thomas Jefferson
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Agriculture is at the same time the most tranquil, healthy, and independent occupation.
Thomas Jefferson
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The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.
Thomas Jefferson
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The uniform tenor of a man's life furnishes better evidence of what he has said or done on any particular occasion than the word of any enemy.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am entirely persuaded that the agitations of the public mind advance its powers, and that at every vibration between the points of liberty and despotism, something will be gained for the former. As men become better informed, their rulers must respect them the more.
Thomas Jefferson
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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
Thomas Jefferson
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In the environment, every victory is temporary, every defeat permanent.
Thomas Jefferson
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For St. Paul only says that it is better to be married than to burn. Now I presume that if that apostle had known that providence would at an after day be so kind to any particular set of people as to furnish them with other means of extinguishing their fire than those of matrimony, he would have earnestly recmmended them to their practice.
Thomas Jefferson
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There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded...2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last.
Thomas Jefferson
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If the question [before justices of the peace] relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact.
Thomas Jefferson