“I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, and the independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital [Paris].”
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Thomas Jefferson
“It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterward.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Speaking one day to Monsieur de Buffon, on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on the footing with those of the kitchen. I think it, on the contrary, among the most useful of sciences, and big with future discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large...”
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Thomas Jefferson
“no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I felt enough of the effect of withdrawing from the world then, to see that it led to an antisocial and misanthropic state of mind, which severely punished him who gives in to it. And it will be a lesson I never shall forget as to myself.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
