“The pretense that the workings of the mind, like the actions of the body, are subject to the control of laws, does not seem sufficiently demolished. ... The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
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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
“I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“All are dead, and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know us not.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“History, by apprising [the people] of the past, will enable them to judge of the future.”
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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
“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I am bold to Say that neither you nor I, will live to See the Course which 'the Wonders of the Times' will take. Many Years, and perhaps Centuries must pass, before the current will acquire a Settled direction... yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.
―
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
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
