We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Politicians
Thomas Jefferson
Third U.S. president (1743-1826) and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. He wrote "all men are created equal" while owning more than 600 enslaved people over his lifetime and fathering at least six children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved teenager in his household. As secretary of state, vice president, and president he authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, doubled the country's territory through the Louisiana Purchase, dispatched the Lewis and Clark expedition, and founded the University of Virginia. He died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of independence, only hours before his lifelong rival and friend John Adams.
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Thomas Jefferson's Other Quotes
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
I cannot live without books.
Related Quotes
Officials are not perpetually noble, and commoners are not perpetually base.
-- Mozi
Good sense is the most evenly distributed thing in the world.
-- René Descartes
The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.
-- John Stuart Mill
Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
-- John Locke
The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided ... he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.
-- John Locke
The Supreme Being has not decreed monarchy, nor aristocracy, nor wealth, nor slavery. He has decreed equality.
-- Maximilien Robespierre