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>Did Thomas Jefferson ever say (Every Ten years it might be a good >idea to shoot the lawyers?) I am not familiar with such a quotation, and I doubt if it was by Thomas Jefferson. Whoever said it was indulging in hyperbole, and Jefferson rarely spoke in such terms. It sounds vaguely related to a quote from Shakespeare in which he says something about 'First we will get rid of all the lawyers,' or something to that effect. Nevertheless, Jefferson did not have a high opinion of lawyers, even though he was one himself. Below are a couple of quotes that demonstrate his general disdain: "If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?" --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:87 "It would seem impossible that an intelligent people with the faculty of reading and right of thinking should continue much longer to slumber under the pupilage of an interested aristocracy of priests and lawyers, persuading them to distrust themselves and to let them think for them." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807. ME 11:156 I doubt very much, however, that the quote about which you inquire is by Jefferson. I have not run across it in my study of his writings.