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Take things always by their smooth handle.

Thomas Jefferson

How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Blessing Country Enjoyment Freedom Liberty People
It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Business Democracy Instruction Liberty Mind People
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 civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Believe Government History Ignorance People Religious
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these indeed the sun shone brightly.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Arrangement Friendship Precious Proof Sun Sunshine
Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Depend Geometry Opinion Religious Rights Science
We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Country Government Majority Participate Politics
How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Cost Evil Happen Healing Pain Suffering
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

Fund Future Money Principle
In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Confidence Constitution Democracy Law Man Power
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Ambition Design Freedom Independence Virtue
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Bold Courage Fear Honesty Knowledge Truth
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Death Liberty Machine Man Struggle
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Ambition Men Pain Truth
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Deep Education Insult Man Newspaper Reading
There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Education Equality People Philosophy Treatment
When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
THOMAS JEFFERSON

Fear Government Liberty People Politics

Take things always by their smooth handle.

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Take things always by their smooth handle.

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