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The federal government is our servant, not our master.

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
Federal
Servant
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No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.
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The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe, the sinks of voluntary misery.
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Each generation has a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its happiness.
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Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree.
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Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.
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A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.
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I am already sensible of decay in the power of walking, and find my memory not so faithful as it used to be. This may be partly owing to the incessant current of new matter flowing constantly through it but I ascribe to years their share in it also.
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May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion.
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If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection.
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Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
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The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven. I can scarcely expect bread.
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Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.
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Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.
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Music...This is the favorite passion of my soul.
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The Christian god is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.
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Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every other thing. ...I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
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I am not myself apt to be alarmed at innovations recommended by reason. That dread belongs to those whose interests or prejudices shrink from the advance of truth and science.
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Without books, I would certainly die.
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I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
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