"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,
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the
possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because
every other possesses 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. That ideas should
freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual
instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been
peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like
fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any
point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical
being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions
then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Thomas Jefferson
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Paul Jones
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
http://sunsite.unc.edu/pjones/ The Unix Web Server Book (Ventana 1997)
pjones@sunsite.unc.edu voice: (919) 962-7600 fax: ???????
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