“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. ”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice”
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Thomas Jefferson
“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.”
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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
“Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! With the rational respect that is due to it, knavish priests have added prostitutions of it, that fill or might fill the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted by the laws in theory.”
―
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
“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I consider him [Alexander von Humboldt] the most important scientist whom I have met.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
