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The opinions of men should not be the object of any government. Our civil rights are no more dependent on our religious beliefs than they are dependent upon our thoughts about geometry or physics!

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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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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A lottery is a salutary instrument and a tax... laid on the willing only, that is to say, on those who can risk the price of a ticket without sensible injury, for the possibility of a higher prize.
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[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.
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I have always said that a studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.
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The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.
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I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.
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When a uniform exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies,you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity in such a case, retaliation becomes an act of benevolence.
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The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.
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. . . in the full tide of successful experiment.
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I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses, nor pursue measures by which they may profit, and then profit by their measures.
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When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
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A government held together by the bands of reason only, requires much compromise of opinion.
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We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
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The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
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I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.
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My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war-and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war but of its abolition I despair.
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The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.
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.
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Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
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Laws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.
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The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.
Thomas Jefferson