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An industrious farmer occupies a more dignified place in the scale of beings...than a lazy lounger...too proud to work, and drawing out a miserable existence by eating on that surplus of other men's labor.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
Archaeologist
Architect
Cryptographer
Diplomat
Farmer
Inventor
Jurist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Slaveholder
President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Proud
Scale
Existence
Scales
Place
Lazy
Occupies
Work
Miserable
Dignified
Men
Drawing
Industrious
Labor
Surplus
Eating
Farmer
Beings
Farmers

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A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.
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By... [selecting] the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated.
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Taste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.
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We are not immortal ourselves, my friend how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence and we must acquiesce.
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The happiness of society depends so much on preventing party spirit from infecting the common intercourse of life, that nothing should be spared to harmonize and amalgamate the two parties in social circles.
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The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived. To avoid this they should be instructed to a certain degree.
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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.
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Never was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which has been employed to persuade nations that it is in their interest to go to war.
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The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
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The clergy believe that any power confided in me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes, and they believe rightly.
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While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?
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One generation cannot bind another.
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Taste cannot be controlled by law.
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Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.
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If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.
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Good humor is one of the preservatives of our peace and tranquility.
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The eyes of our citizens are not sufficiently open to the true cause of our distress. They ascribe them to everything but their true cause, the banking system
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We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.
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Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.
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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.
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