If NATURE has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea... No one possesses the less, because every other possess the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Thomas JeffersonOur civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
Thomas JeffersonWhat is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.
Thomas JeffersonWhile wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?
Thomas Jefferson...It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is in all this design, cause, and effect up to an Ultimate Cause-a Fabricator of all things, from matter and motion-their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms-and their Regenerator into new and other forms.
Thomas Jefferson