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Book: Letters of Thomas Jefferson
Quotes of Book: Letters of Thomas Jefferson
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  1. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    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 all this artificial scaffolding...{}"
    book-quotereasonfathermyth

  2. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.
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  3. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.
    book-quotenatureamericaequality

  4. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    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.
    book-quoteinequalityexperienceeurope

  5. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.
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  6. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons, to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians; and if, having their laws from that period to the close of the common law, we are able to find among them no such act of adoption; we may safely affirm {though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth} that .{}"
    book-quotecommon-lawfounding-fathersaxons

  7. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    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.{}
    book-quotehistoryignorancealexander-von-humboldt

  8. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    There exists indeed an opposition to it {} by the friends of William and Mary, which is not strong. The most restive is that of the . In this the Presbyterian clergy take the lead. The tocsin is sounded in all their pulpits, and the first alarm denounced is against the particular creed of Doctr. Cooper; and as impudently denounced as if they really knew what it is.{}
    book-quotesciencepresbyteriandread

  9. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    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 . . . inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
    book-quoteman

  10. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    If we could believe that he {Jesus} really countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism which his biographers {Gospels} father on him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an impostor... We find in the writings of his biographers matter of two distinct descriptions. First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications... That sect {Jews} had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust... Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. They were constantly laying snares, too, to entangle him in the web of the law... That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore.{Letter to William Short, 4 August, 1820}
    book-quotereasonskepticismlies

  11. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    . . . 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."
    book-quote

  12. Thomas Jefferson _ Letters of Thomas Jefferson

    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.
    book-quote
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