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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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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
Tyranny
Afraid
Liberty
Government
People
More quotes by Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
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The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man
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History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.
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There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
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Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace
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It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united.
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Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
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I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.
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I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowlege among the people. no other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness.
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All authority belongs to the people.
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No society can make a perpetual constitution... The earth belongs always to the living generation.
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The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
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It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
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If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will, in fact, be for life, and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance.
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I shall rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery.
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Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.
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[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.
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Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
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Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.
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Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
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