“[Christianity is] the most ... perverted system that ever shone on man.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. 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
“If all be true that I do think, there are five reasons we should drink. Good friends, good times, or being dry, or lest we should be by and by, or any other reason why”
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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
“Nothing is more likely than that [the] enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting”
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Thomas Jefferson
“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too. ”
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Thomas Jefferson
“An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The vote being passed, altho' further observn on it was out of order, he could not refrain from rising and expressing his satisfaction and concluded by saying "there is but one word, Mr. President, in the paper which I disapprove, & that is the word Congress," on which Ben Harrison rose and said "there is but on word in the paper, Mr. President, of which I approve, and that is the word Congress.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”
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Thomas Jefferson