It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Thomas Jefferson quote

Thomas Jefferson

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1066 He who demands mercy and shows none burns the bridges over which he himself must later pass.
1076 War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
1080 The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
1109 If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.
1081 The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

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