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An hereditary aristocracy... will change the form of our governments from the best to the worst in the world.

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
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Hereditary
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I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain.
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Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.
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If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
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The contest is not between us and them, but between good and evil, and if those who would fight evil adopt the ways of evil, evil wins.
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I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors & perils begat mutual confidence and influence.
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No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness.
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To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.
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But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?
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A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.
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The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.
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I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.
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There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.
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Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.
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When tempted to do any thing in secret, ask yourself if you would do it in public.
Thomas Jefferson
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I wish I was a despot that I might save the noble, the beautiful trees that are daily falling sacrifice to the cupidity of their owners, or the necessity of the poor. The unnecessary felling of a tree, perhaps the growth of centuries, seems to me a crime little short of murder.
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With earnest prayers to all my friends to cherish mutual good will, to promote harmony and conciliation, and above all things to let the love of our country soar above all minor passions, I tender you the assurance of my affectionate esteem and respect.
Thomas Jefferson
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[F]alsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
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Money, not morality, constitutes the principle of commercial nations.
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The monopoly of a single bank is certainly an evil. The multiplication of them was intended to cure it but it multiplied an influence of the same character with the first, and completed the supplanting the precious metals by a paper circulation. Between such parties the less we meddle the better.
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I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
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