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Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.

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
Believe
Believes
Generation
Generations
Choose
Happiness
Form
Government
Right

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.
Thomas Jefferson
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For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.
Thomas Jefferson
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The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism.
Thomas Jefferson
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I leave the world and its affairs to the young and energetic, and resign myself to their care, of whom I have endeavored to take care when young.
Thomas Jefferson
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Many are the exercises of power reserved to the States wherein a uniformity of proceeding would be advantageous to all. Such are quarantines, health laws, regulations of the press, banking institutions, training militia, etc., etc.
Thomas Jefferson
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The Earth is given as a common for men to labor and live in.
Thomas Jefferson
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A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest.
Thomas Jefferson
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The bloom of Monticello is chilled by my solitude.
Thomas Jefferson
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Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country and by taking in those who are not so, the able part of the body have their hands tied by the unable.
Thomas Jefferson
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besides the comfort of knowlege, every science is auxiliary to every other.
Thomas Jefferson
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What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.
Thomas Jefferson
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Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.
Thomas Jefferson
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The best commentary on the principles of government which has ever been written.
Thomas Jefferson
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Our wish is that...[there be] maintained that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry or that of his fathers.
Thomas Jefferson
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The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the protection of our government in all places where they may lawfully go.
Thomas Jefferson
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The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.
Thomas Jefferson
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Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.
Thomas Jefferson
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One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.
Thomas Jefferson
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If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.
Thomas Jefferson