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I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid and I find myself much the happier.

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
Newspapers
Given
Find
Thucydides
Much
Tacitus
Euclid
Newton
Exchange
Happier

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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Do not neglect your music. It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you.
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The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years.
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Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that ... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.
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One never really knows how much one has been touched by a place until one has left it.
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I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
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It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.
Thomas Jefferson
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Would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not.
Thomas Jefferson
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I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things but they would have been done by others some of them, perhaps, a little better.
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An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens.
Thomas Jefferson
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I thank heaven that the 4th. of July is over. It is always a day of great fatigue to me, and of some embarrassments from improper intrusions and some from unintended exclusions.
Thomas Jefferson
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If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform.
Thomas Jefferson
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History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson
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Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
Thomas Jefferson
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I never before knew the full value of trees....What would I not give that the trees planted nearest round the house at Monticello were full grown.
Thomas Jefferson
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A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Thomas Jefferson
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I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
Thomas Jefferson
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As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.
Thomas Jefferson
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Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. The Europeans value themselves on having subdued the horse to the uses of man but I doubt whether we have not lost more than we have gained, by the use of this animal.
Thomas Jefferson
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Bind them down by the chains of the Constitution where they can do no mischief.
Thomas Jefferson
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If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi... in war, they will kill some of us we shall destroy them all.
Thomas Jefferson