“The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everyone is standing around reloading”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“It was one of the rules which above all others made Doctr. Franklin the most amiable of men in society, "never to contradict anybody.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The fantastical idea of virtue and the public good being a sufficient security to the state against the commission of crimes...was never mine. It is only the sanguinary hue of our penal laws which I meant to object to. Punishments I know are necessary, and I would provide them strict and inflexible, but proportioned to the crime. Death might be inflicted for murder and perhaps for treason, [but I] would take out of the description of treason all crimes which are not such in their nature. Rape, buggery, etc., punish by castration. All other crimes by working on high roads, rivers, gallies, etc., a certain time proportioned to the offence... Laws thus proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the lawgiver, but let the judge be a mere machine. The mercies of the law will be dispensed equally and impartially to every description of men; those of the judge or of the executive power will be the eccentric impulses of whimsical, capricious designing man.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Nobody is better than you and remember, you are better than nobody.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“All that is necessary for a student is access to a library.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
