“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“If you want something you've never had
You must be willing to do something you've never done.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. --”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Peace, that glorious moment in time when everyone stops and reloads.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I agree with yours of the 22d that a professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution. but we cannot always do what is absolutely best. those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. truth advances, & error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under the burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end.”
―
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.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
