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It is better to have no ideas than false ones.

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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T. Jefferson
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More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

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When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason.
Thomas Jefferson
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The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
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So, ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, in what country on earth would you rather live? — Certainly, in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.
Thomas Jefferson
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Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.
Thomas Jefferson
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The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.
Thomas Jefferson
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Against us are all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.
Thomas Jefferson
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Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
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When the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
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Where the principle of difference [between political parties] is as substantial and as strongly pronounced as between the republicans and the monocrats of our country, I hold it as honorable to take a firm and decided part and as immoral to pursue a middle line, as between the parties of honest men and rogues, into which every country is divided.
Thomas Jefferson
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How did Jefferson feel about the people of his day who were the equivalent of our modern day penecostals? You know, those revelation reveling tongue speaking idiots.
Thomas Jefferson
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At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about a public debt being a public blessing that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture. This paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in dreams.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson
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I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.
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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The superiority of chocolate (hot chocolate), both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain.
Thomas Jefferson
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Always take hold of things by the smooth handle grateful that they are not worse rather than the rough handle, bitter that they are not better.
Thomas Jefferson
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Laws abridging the natural right of the citizen should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.
Thomas Jefferson