The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1784-1787

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G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1894

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Page 467 - What signify a few lives lost in a century or two ? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Page 370 - The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere.
Page 184 - He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
Page 132 - It is, however, an evil for which there is no remedy: our liberty depends on the freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Page 480 - Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
Page 268 - I think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness.
Page 334 - In fact, it is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles : and it is honorable for us, to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare, that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.
Page 105 - Were I to indulge my own theory, I should wish them to practise neither commerce nor navigation, but to stand, with respect to Europe, precisely on the footing of China. We should thus avoid wars, and all our citizens would be husbandmen.
Page 360 - If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions, and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Page 269 - Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils, and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.

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