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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1062
AUTHOR: Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION: God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the State to effect and on a general plan.
ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS JEFFERSON. Inscription on the northeast quadrant of the Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C., selected by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission, from several writings of Jefferson’s. The inscription omits words without ellipses.
SUBJECTS: Liberty