“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions...but I know also that laws and constitutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.....”
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Thomas Jefferson
“If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“[T]he artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted...”
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Thomas Jefferson
“A habilidade mais valiosa é aquela de jamais usar duas palavras quando uma apenas basta.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give
you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”
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Thomas Jefferson