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Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. ...I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.

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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this interesting subject, which, if the condition of man is to be progressively ameliorated, as we fondly hope and believe, is to be the chief instrument in effecting it.
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I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.
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In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.
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If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves.
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Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
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We wish the happiness and prosperity of every nation.
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If the book be false in its facts, disprove them if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.
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The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.
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Bigotry is the disease of ignorance.
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A mind always employed is always happy.
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While the principles of our Constitution give just latitude to inquiry, every citizen faithful to it will deem embodied expressions of discontent and open outrages of law and patriotism as dishonorable as they are injurious
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If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
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Error is to be pitied and pardoned: it is the weakness of human nature. But vice is a foul blemish, not pardonable in any character.
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I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.
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I considered the British as our natural enemies, and as the only nation on earth who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls. And I am satisfied that were our continent to be swallowed up by the ocean, Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one end to the other.
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All... natural rights may be abridged or modified in [their] exercise by law.
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In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and prayer parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a hen-pecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus, in terms as amatory and carnal, as their modesty would permit them to use a mere earthly lover.
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I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality.
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Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence.
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I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make.
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