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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
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
France, freed from that monster, Bonaparte, must again become the most agreeable country on earth. It would be the second choice of all whose ties of family and fortune give a preference to some other one, and the first choice of all not under those ties.
Thomas Jefferson
I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old.
Thomas Jefferson
But under the beaming, constant and almost vertical sun of Virginia, shade is our Elysium. In the absence of this no beauty of the eye can be enjoyed.
Thomas Jefferson
I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing but a necessity invincible by any other means can justify ... a prostitution of laws, which constitute the pillars of our whole system of jurisprudence.
Thomas Jefferson
One never really knows how much one has been touched by a place until one has left it.
Thomas Jefferson
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. In order to flourish, the tree of Liberty needs the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state
Thomas Jefferson
The issue for patents for new discovers has given a spring to invention beyond my conception.
Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
The equal rights of man and the happiness of every individual are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not write me studied letters but ramble as you please.
Thomas Jefferson
It may be regarded as certain that not a foot of land will ever be taken from the Indians without their own consent.
Thomas Jefferson
Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself.
Thomas Jefferson
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
Thomas Jefferson
Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
Thomas Jefferson
[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.
Thomas Jefferson
Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion.
Thomas Jefferson
The art of life is the art of avoiding pain and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.
Thomas Jefferson
