“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
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Thomas Jefferson
“No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
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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
“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment...But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry...”
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Thomas Jefferson
