“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
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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
“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
“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“There is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“All, all dead: and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know not us.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“If Americans desire to be both ignorant and free, they want what never has been and what never will be.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
