“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster cruel vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging three headed beast like god one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes fools and hypocrites. ”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I am not a Federalist because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever....Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.
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Thomas Jefferson
“I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“A government which can be felt; a government of energy. God send that our country may never have a government, which it can feel.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“You have heard of the new chemical nomenclature endeavored to be introduced by Lavoisier, Fourcroy, &c. Other chemists of this country, of equal note, reject it, and prove in my opinion that it is premature, insufficient and false. These latter are joined by the British chemists; and upon the whole, I think the new nomenclature will be rejected, after doing more harm than good. There are some good publications in it, which must be translated into the ordinary chemical language before they will be useful.”
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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
“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I write nothing for publication, and last of all things should it be on the subject of religion. On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind. Were I to enter on that arena, I should only add an unit to the number of Bedlamites.
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Thomas Jefferson
“The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
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Thomas Jefferson