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The best defense of democracy is an informed electorate.

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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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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Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than that of face and stature.
Thomas Jefferson
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Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people.
Thomas Jefferson
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The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties.
Thomas Jefferson
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We abhor the follies of war, and are not untried in its distresses and calamities. Unmeddling with the affairs of other nations, we had hoped that our distance and our dispositions would have left us free, in the example and indulgence of peace with all the world.
Thomas Jefferson
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Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.
Thomas Jefferson
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If you have any duty which must be done, and it seems disagreeable, do it promptly and have it over.
Thomas Jefferson
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We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.
Thomas Jefferson
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in the spring he will attend your botanical course. his natural turn is very strongly to the objects of your two courses of lectures, and I hope you will have reason to be contended with his capacity & character.
Thomas Jefferson
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For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.
Thomas Jefferson
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I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce the desired effect.
Thomas Jefferson
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A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence, and good-humor, will go far toward securing to you the estimation of the world.
Thomas Jefferson
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No society is so precious as that of one’s own family.
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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The President is bound to stop at the limits prescribed by our Constitution and law to the authorities in his hands, [and this] would apply in an occasion of peace as well as war.
Thomas Jefferson
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Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson
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It is my principle that the will of the majority should always prevail.
Thomas Jefferson
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There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.
Thomas Jefferson
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The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Thomas Jefferson
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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.
Thomas Jefferson