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I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislature to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
I... [proposed] three distinct grades of education, reaching all classes.
1. Elementary schools for all children generally, rich and poor.
2. Colleges for a middle degree of instruction, calculated for the
common purposes of life and such as should be desirable for all who were
in easy circumstances.
And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences generally and in
their highest degree...
The expenses of [the elementary] schools should be borne by the
inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general
tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
Reason and free inquiry are the only effective agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error and error only. Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the Reformation, the corruption of Christianity could not have been purged away.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
It is the great parent of science & of virtue: and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him; every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him; and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions, and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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The sword of the law should never fall but on those whose guilt is so apparent as to be pronounced by their friends as well as foes.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
...truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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I agree with you that it is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
The two principles on which our conduct towards the Indians should be founded, are justice and fear. After the injuries we have done them, they cannot love us ...more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
To preserve the freedom
of the human mind then
and freedom of the press,
every spirit should be ready
to devote itself to martyrdom.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied upon to set them to rights.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing ... this enterprise is for the young; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to it's consummation. It shall have all my prayers, and these are the only weapons of an old man.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.more Andrew Johnson quotes |
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You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered.more Lyndon B. Johnson quotes |
Free speech, free press, free religion, the right of free assembly, yes, the right of petition... well, they are still radical ideas.more Lyndon B. Johnson quotes |
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Academic freedom really means freedom of inquiry. To be able to probe according to one’s own interest, knowledge and conscience is the most important freedom the scholar has, and part of that process is to state its results.more Donald Kennedy quotes |
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Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.more John F. Kennedy quotes |
There is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.more John F. Kennedy quotes |
