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As government grows, freedom recedes.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Recedes
Grows
Freedom
Government

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When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.
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[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired] This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects
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Public offices were not made for private convenience.
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The construction applied . . . to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power . . . ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.
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Law is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
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Of all the cankers of human happiness none corrodes with so silent, yet so baneful an influence, as indolence.
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[F]alsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
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A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
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Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences.
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We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.
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A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry
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Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.
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Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.
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Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice.
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To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
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Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.
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We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.
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Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.
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If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption.
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[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.
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