"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses."
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Thomas Jefferson quotes (page 29 of 91)
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"We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries."
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"Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own."
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"In our own native land, in defense of the freedom that is our birthright and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it. For the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before."
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"I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."
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"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
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"Always take hold of things by the smooth handle."
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"Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error."
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"[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people."
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"I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises."
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"... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed."
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"Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side."
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"Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
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"The truth is, that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words."
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"To every obstacle oppose patience, perseverance and soothing language."
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"No nation is drunken where wine is cheap."
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"Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow."
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"The most effective means of preventing tyranny is to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts."
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"Rejecting all organs of informationbut my senses, I rid myself of the Pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations hyperphysical and antiphysical so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind."
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"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty."
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