Jefferson teaches us "the power of the word -- that ideas
matter, that words beautifully shaped reshape lives."
-- Garry Wills, Historian
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A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I
advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it
gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played
with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body
and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the
constant companion of your walks.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from
injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate
their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from
the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good
government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we
would soon want for bread.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be
limited without being lost.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling
alliance with none.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government
of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?
Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history
answer this question.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect
the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his
estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate
make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury
from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against
their wills.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any
party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in
anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction
is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to
Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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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 political as well as religious leaders
will always avail themselves for their own purpose.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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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.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and
bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in
government.
-- Thomas Jefferson
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