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A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the
people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true
that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long
oppressions of enormous public debt. But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and
when & where they would end? Better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we
can, & from all attachments to any portions of it. And if we feel their power just sufficiently
to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs
sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an
opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at stake.
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Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, June 4, 1798
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A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. In
order to flourish, the tree of Liberty needs the blood of patriots and tyrants.
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Thomas Jefferson
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A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds
of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of
capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life,
their only capital.
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Thomas Jefferson
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But 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, i Notes on Virginia, 1785
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Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone
on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the
teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the
first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Compulsion in religion is distinguished peculiarly from compulsion in every
other thing. ...I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.
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Thomas Jefferson
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I cannot live without books.
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Thomas Jefferson
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I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which
declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation
between Church and State.
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Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut, Jan. 1, 1802
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I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find
in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all
alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and
children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured,
fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one
half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and
error all over the earth.
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Thomas Jefferson
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I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a
cause for withdrawing from a friend.
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Thomas Jefferson
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If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what
never was and never will be.
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Thomas Jefferson
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It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: those who fear and distrust the
people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of higher classes and those who
identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the
most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every
country these two parties exist.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited
without being lost.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require
the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree,
(for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness,) and that
we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ,
and which are totally unconnected with morality.
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Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to James Fishback, September 27, 1809
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Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
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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.
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Thomas Jefferson
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The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for
enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a
contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact,
constitute the real Anti-Christ.
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Thomas Jefferson
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The man who reads nothing at all is better educated tahn the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
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Thomas Jefferson
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... the maxim of civil government being reversed in that of
religion, where its true form is,
`divided we stand, united we fall'.
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Thomas Jefferson, commenting on
the true meaning of religious liberty in a pluralistic democracy, in a letter to
Jacob De La Motta, Sept. 1, 1820
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The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling
themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system
of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words.
And 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 classed 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] all this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine
doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
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Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
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Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not
have, nor do they deserve, either one.
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Thomas Jefferson
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To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he
disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.
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Thomas Jefferson
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We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others,
without fearing it.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers,
or newspapers without a government , I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
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Thomas Jefferson
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